January 18, 2017
Synthesis
The review committee recommended two Synthesis Working Group proposals for funding in the current round. Congratulations to Forest Isbell, Jane M. Cowles, and Laura Dee who will lead Scaling-up productivity responses to changes in biodiversity and Lauren Hallett, Daniel Reuman, Katharine Suding for Synthesizing Population and community synchrony to understand drivers of ecological stability across LTER sites.
Mark your calendars
The NSF mini-symposium is scheduled for March 21, 2017. The list of speakers is available at lternet.edu. We are still seeking a few posters to complement the featured talks. Please contact Marty Downs if you have a story you think NSF should see.
The annual Executive Board meeting is scheduled for May 16, 2017 at Hubbard Brook LTER. The Science Council meeting will follow on May 17th, 18th, and 19th. The theme is “disturbance” with a focus on the use and value of long-term data. The steering committee includes Frank Davis, Michael Nelson, Gary Lovett and Evelyn Gaiser.
An online, interactive workshop on science communication fundamentals, “Telling the Right Story to the Right People, at the Right Time,” is underway now. If you are interested in being notified directly about future communications trainings and resources, please sign up for the communications interest list.
The NCO has two workshops accepted for ESA 2017 in Portland, OR. Marty will lead a workshop on quick and inexpensive video production. Sam and the education committee will lead a lunch-time workshop on using the Next Generation Science Standards EQuIP rubric to spark collaborative lesson generation between educators and scientists. We’ll let you know when registration is open.
Meetings and Outreach
The annual Life Discovery Conference, which ESA helps organize, highlights leading science, curriculum design, implementation, and data exploration efforts for high school and undergraduate education. Presentations are no longer being accepted, but it’s still a great place to connect with educators and education-focused colleagues.
For the upcoming ASLO Aquatic Sciences meeting, the NCO is summarizing and promoting LTER-related talks and posters, as we have for ESA and AGU in the past. If you haven’t already let us know about your talk or poster, please do.
Abstracts are due soon for presentations at the 2017 Ecological Society of America Meeting in Portland Oregon. The submission deadline is Thursday, February 23 at 5:00 p.m. Eastern time. Remember to include LTER in your title or abstract so we can find and promote your talk!
From the Committees
The Information Management Committee has a new training working group, working on identifying unmet training needs and developing new resources. The web site improvement and redesign (WIRED) working group is assessing and refreshing the information managers web site.
The Education and Outreach Committee is working on the application of a new rubric to guide the design of classroom resources. Talk with Sam Norlin or Steven McGee if you’re interested. This summer’s long-distance information share among Research-Experience-for-Teachers participants, organized by Kara Haas and others, offered a sense of community and inspiration for teachers working at LTER sites. Marty Downs and Jill Haukos are working on a redraft of a resource guide for Education and Outreach managers.
The Diversity Committee was established as a standing committee at the 2016 Science Council meeting, tasked with developing diversity-related resources and approaches for use across the Network. Current chair is Alan Berkowitz.
LTER Newsletter Reminder
LTER Science update, issued monthly, provides brief, accessible summaries of recent science from across the Network. It is designed to inform partners, educators, and the broader ecological community as well as Network scientists. Please share and encourage your colleagues to subscribe.
News from the NCO, issued quarterly, provides regular organizational updates to all LTER-associated personnel. If you have news items from your committee that you would like to have included, please drop me a line.
