Where is the Baltimore Ecosystem Study (BES)?

BES as Place Why in Baltimore of course?  But that’s not a complete answer.  Our research, education, and community engagement are of course focused on the five-county conurbation that is […]

Swamps and the City: Part II

A special guest post by Prof. Grace S. Brush, Johns Hopkins University. My last post discussed how the role of people in shaping the swampy systems of the Everglades had […]

Swamps and the City

Laura A. Ogden, of Florida International University is an anthropologist and Co-Principal Investigator of the Florida Coastal Everglades LTER.  She is also a regular collaborator with the BES community and […]

Natural Experiments of History

The title of this essay is the same as a book edited by Jared Diamond and James A. Robinson, published in 2010 by Harvard University Press.  The book explores the […]

A Moving Field Guide

Seeing the World Science starts with noticing the world – what plants and animals do, the changes in vegetation over time – or in wondering what’s going on beneath the […]

Adaptive Explanations in Cities

Cities are hard to explain, no doubt.  Within and between cities, social capital, historical contingency, economic resources, and the deployment of power are well known explanatory variables.  One kind of […]

Complexity: The Hidden Nugget in Jane Jacobs’ Book

Well, perhaps it’s unfair to call it hidden.  It is after all the topic of the final chapter, entitled “The Kind of Problem a City Is.”  In that chapter, she […]

Interest in Urban Resilience: A Burgeoning Frontier

Resilience is becoming an increasingly important concept in contemporary ecological science.  Since the introduction of the resilience cycle, an open ended, ecological concept has guided the understanding of this important […]

Does Science Need Art?

Here’s something to think about, from a recent article in the Business section of the Christian Science Monitor, one of the “newspapers of record” in the United States (www.csmonitor.com/business/2011/0323/What-do-Apple-GM-and-P-G-share-Design): The […]

Insights from the BES Communicating Science Meeting

Common strategies for effective communication of science This meeting, led by Dr. Chris Swan of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County with my assistance, was designed to improve the ability […]