On the Bay

Maryland Sea Grant and the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science are working with researchers in Puerto Rico to determine what is causing the coastal lagoons to glow.

It’s a fascinating project, and the devastation of Hurricane Maria has made the work all the more challenging.

Scientists have long used physical models that simplify the complexities of real environmental systems in order to make informed predictions of future change.

Give students a fish, and they can eat for a day.

Give students 10 striped bass, a laboratory with re-circulating water tanks, and a box full of feed, and you can teach them how a planet is increasingly feeding itself.

I unrolled a map of the Chesapeake Bay, pinned it to the wall, and started pressing blue dots throughout it. It’s a big map and takes up the largest wall space I have in my cubicle at Maryland Sea Grant’s College Park office. 

I walked to the dock’s edge from the parking lot to admire the 13-footer, nicknamed the “River Rat.” Soon, it would transport volunteer Tom Guay across the Severn River on a scientific expedition.