JHU Environmental Science and Policy

08/04/2026

Explore the C&O Canal with one of our ESP students, Beanca.

07/29/2026

📖 ESP BOOK CLUB PICK: The Water Remembers by Amy Bowers Cordalis

Before our Intersection of Science and Society students set foot in the Klamath Watershed, they picked up this book first — and it's easy to see why.

The Water Remembers is a powerful multigenerational memoir of Indigenous resistance, environmental justice, and one Yurok family's decades-long fight to protect their river and their way of life. 🌊

When a catastrophic fish kill devastates the Klamath, Amy Bowers Cordalis is called into action — reigniting her family's 170-year battle against the U.S. government. Through a stunning blend of memoir and history, she traces her family's legacy: her great-uncle's landmark Supreme Court case affirming her Nation's rights to land, water, and sovereignty; her great-grandmother's defiance during the Salmon Wars; and her own journey as General Counsel for the Yurok Tribe, where she helped spearhead the largest river restoration project in history.

This isn't just a story about fish — it's a story about identity, resilience, and what it means to protect a way of life for future generations. 🐟

For our students headed to the Klamath, this book isn't just required reading — it's the foundation.
Understanding the history, the people, and the stakes before stepping onto the riverbank changes everything about how you experience it.

Have you read it yet? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

📚 The Water Remembers by Amy Bowers Cordalis — now on our student reading list. More to come and be on the lookout for our next post about Amy Bowers Cordalis!

07/26/2026

🌍 Do you see yourself in any of these photos? 🌍

Picture yourself out in the field, hands-on and fully immersed — surrounded by engaging classmates, community-enriched activities, dedicated policymakers, leading scientists, and experienced practitioners. This is everyday life in the Environmental Science and Policy MS program at Johns Hopkins University!

Our students don't just learn about environmental challenges from a textbook — they get out into the field to study them firsthand, build real relationships with the communities they serve, and work alongside experts who are shaping environmental policy today. Whether you're passionate about climate change, conservation, sustainability, or the policies that drive environmental change, this program equips you with the skills and network to make a real impact.

✅ Hands-on field experience
✅ Interdisciplinary approach bridging science and policy
✅ Access to a vibrant community of scholars and practitioners
✅ A network that extends well beyond graduation

Ready to picture yourself here? Learn more about how you can join our next cohort and start turning your passion for the environment into real-world impact. 🌱

Learn how to apply: https://advanced.jhu.edu/admissions-aid/how-to-apply/

Learn about our ESP program: https://advanced.jhu.edu/academics/graduate/ms-environmental-sciences-policy/

07/25/2026

👣 GETTING YOUR FEET WET 👣

Standing above a stream only tells you so much. The moment you step in — boots off, cold water rushing past your ankles, feeling the current pull at the cobbles beneath your feet — the river stops being an abstraction and becomes something real. You feel the temperature, the flow, the texture of the streambed itself, not just read it off a data sheet. 🌊

This is why understanding a watershed can't stop at what we observe from land. Real insight depends on direct experience — getting in, getting close, and meeting the ecosystem on its own terms. Studying a river without ever wading into it is like trying to understand a forest without ever walking beneath the canopy. 🌲💧

Sometimes the best fieldwork starts with a simple step off the bank.

07/24/2026

"Oh the places we go".

07/24/2026

🤿 PUT YOUR FACE IN THE WATER 🤿

You can stand on the bank all day. But the river doesn't show you the truth until you get in it. 🌊

Face down. Mask on. Fish darting past. That's when it stops being a river you're studying — and becomes one you actually know. 🐟

Some things you just can't learn from the shore.

07/23/2026

It's easy to focus on the mainstem when we talk about the Klamath River — but some of the most critical work happens upstream, in the cold creek tributaries most people never see. 🏞️

These smaller, shaded, spring-fed creeks are lifelines for the watershed. They deliver cold, oxygen-rich water into the mainstem at exactly the moments fish need it most — especially during the hot summer months when the Klamath itself warms to temperatures that can stress or kill salmon and steelhead. Without these cold-water refuges, migrating fish simply don't have anywhere to go. 🐟

This is why river conservation can't stop at the water's edge of the Klamath itself. A healthy river depends on a healthy watershed — every tributary, every stretch of streamside forest, every acre of land that drains into it. Protecting the mainstem while ignoring the tributaries is like trying to keep a body healthy while ignoring its circulatory system. 🌲💧

True restoration means thinking at the scale of the whole system — headwaters to mouth, uplands to river — because the small, cold creeks feeding in from the forest are often what make the big river livable at all.

07/22/2026

We are proud of our ESP students.

07/22/2026

ESP Summer 2026 Field Course Intersection of Science and Society made it to the Redwood forest in Northern California.

07/22/2026