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.

In this all-ages virtual event, participants will use fossil evidence to study ancient organisms and reconstruct the past environments (ecosystems) where they lived—accompanied by live guidance from our Director of Education! ​ Sunday, August 2 at 2:00 PM, on Facebook Live. Read this post to learn more.

In honor of National Wildflower Week, this week’s Distance Learning offerings are focusing on the plant world.

Plants use their roots to absorb nutrients from the soil in which they are growing. The process of nutrient cycling captures elements such as nitrogen from the atmosphere, converts them into a usable form for plant nutrition, and returns those elements back to the atmosphere when the plant dies and decomposes. Learn more about the “how” and “why” of nutrient cycling here!