Catch up on the summer's Super Stellar Friday webinars!
Dave McDonald’s June 5th virtual Super Stellar Friday presentation on the summer solstice. Image credit: Faithe Miller Lakowicz
This summer, the Discovery Center took our monthly guest speaker series online. Our educator Dave McDonald kicked off our virtual Super Stellar Friday back in June, with his presentation on the summer solstice. In July, our Membership and Volunteer Coordinator, Katie Marinoff, put her math degree to use by talking about the Pythagorean theorem, and in August, our Education Director, Mirka Zapletal, shared her doctoral research on carnivores along the Louisiana coast.
At the start of our foray into webinars, we were still getting a handle on how to use the technology. Unfortunately, that means that we weren’t able to record and share Dave’s solstice talk. By July, though, we were experts on all things Zoom—an area, I’m sure, many of you have also mastered by now. So if you weren’t able to tune in on the nights of the presentations, please find recordings of July and August’s Super Stellar Fridays for your viewing pleasure below!
We plan to continue running Super Stellar Friday virtually in September. More information about the event will be posted on our website, so check our Upcoming Programs page soon for details about the presentation and a link to register. To view the webinar, registration is required. The event is free, but we hope that you’ll consider making a donation so that we may continue to offer programs like this in the future!
July 3, 2020
Geometry is knowledge of the eternally existent: Pythagoras, his namesake theorem, and its various proofs
In ancient Greece, a cult-like group followed their leader in study, prayer, and devotion to numbers, believing they had mystical and spiritual qualities. While this sounds like it could be the basis for the next Indiana Jones movie, it’s actually the source of everyone’s favorite high school geometry concept! In this presentation, learn about the mathematician Pythagoras and his Brotherhood of Pythagoreans, the theorem named for him, and the different ways it’s been shown to be true.
August 7, 2020
Carnivores and Climate Change
Climate change in New Hampshire will change weather patterns, shift species ranges, and cause other disruptions to local ecosystems- wildlife populations may have to adjust to new conditions or face extirpation. How will climate change impact some of these same species now inhabiting coastal areas along the Gulf of Mexico where land loss compounds the effects? As part of our celebration of women in STEM, Director of Education and conservation biologist Mirka Zapletal will share her research on coastal carnivore ecology in Louisiana, describing present and future species distributions for carnivores like coyotes, raccoons, and otters, and rodent species which exhibit many of the same ecological traits. Models of Louisiana’s coast suggest dramatically different landscapes in the future. In Louisiana’s dynamic coastal zone where restoration is big business, management decisions to combat those changes incorporate economic, cultural, and endangered species concerns. Those same decisions can have profound impacts on the predator communities (or lack thereof) of restored areas.
