Events

    Astronomy is for All of Us: Celebrating Women Astrophysicists and the History of Cosmic Discovery

    Location: 

    Harvard College Observatory Plate Stacks, 47 Concord Ave., Cambridge

    During Massachusetts STEM Week, join us for an evening celebrating remarkable women in astronomy from across the galaxy. Enjoy a dynamic lecture on exciting applications of astronomy, explore a captivating exhibition in the Great Refractor, engage in family-friendly STEM activities, and cap off the night with fall refreshments and stargazing.

    • Remarks from Professor Lisa Kewley, Director, Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian
    • Welcome remarks from Lt. Governor Kim Driscoll, highlighting...
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    Creature Feature: Let’s Explore Sculpture!

    Location: 

    Harvard Art Museums, 32 Quincy St., Cambridge

    In this family-friendly talk, we’ll explore the colors, shapes, and lines of animal sculptures.

    Creature Feature, an ongoing series from the Harvard Art Museums, offers a chance for families to explore magical creatures across the collections through close looking and curious exploration with museum staff. Creature Feature talks are free and open to explorers ages 6 and up.

    Learn more and RSVP.

    Science Spotlights

    Location: 

    Harvard Museum of Natural History, 26 Oxford St., Cambridge

    Meet Harvard scientists and learn about questions at the forefront of research today in this series of short talks on the following topics:

    • 2:00pm: Sweaty Shrubs with Melissa Mai, Holbrook Lab
      How do plants deal with too much salt? From the world’s driest desert and tropical coastlines to your own neighborhood, plants get exposed to more salt than they’d like. Some plants have developed unique adaptations to handle extra salt, including a shrub that sweats! I explain how multiple branches of science come together to help us unearth this shrub’s...
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    Trans Day of Visibility

    Location: 

    Smith Campus Center, 1350 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge

    Transgender Day of Visibility is here and our joy is contagious! Join us for a celebration of Transgender Day of Visibility in Harvard Commons at Smith Campus Center from 6-9pm. Hosted by a student speaker, this event will consist of speaking, performance, and live rock music! This event is free and open to the public of all ages, no alcohol is permitted.

    Learn...

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    Science Spotlights

    Location: 

    Harvard Museum of Natural History, 26 Oxford St., Cambridge

    Meet up-and-coming scientists and learn about questions at the forefront of research today in this series of short talks. Perhaps you’ll discuss how studying dog reactions help us learn about the evolution of social behavior? Maybe you’ll consider the regrowth of a microscopic worm after injury and what that can teach us about any animal cell. Will you look at how trees manage the tradeoffs of building woody tissue or look for geological evidence of Earth’s first billion years? Each Science Spotlight in the series will include several short research talks.

    Ages 10–Adults....

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    Tree Mob: Sweet Birch

    Location: 

    Online or at Arnold Arboretum, 125 Arborway, Boston

    It looks like a cherry tree, it smells like root beer, but it is, in fact, the beautiful and aromatic sweet birch. Join Horticulturist Brendan Keegan to learn about this fascinating tree and its role in ecological succession, its use by wildlife, and its importance to indigenous communities. You may even get a chance to smell the wintergreen scent yourself.

    Getting to this Tree Mob will involve walking up a moderately sloped gravel path.

    This event will also be presented virtually over Zoom. To sign up for the virtual event,...

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    Birds & Blooms

    Location: 

    Harvard Museum of Natural History, 26 Oxford St., Cambridge

    Did you know that many of the birds in the Northeastern United States spend the winter in Latin America socializing and eating among tropical trees and flowers? Explore the lives and behaviors of these birds in our Birds of the World gallery and learn about flowers from Guatemala, El Salvador, and Mexico in the Blaschka Glass Flowers gallery. Try some hands-on activities led by Hear Me Out/Escúchame teens, see their newest mini exhibit, decorate a bird or flower mask, and brighten the dark season!

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    Crabapple and Maple Festival at the Arnold Arboretum

    Location: 

    Maple Collection on Meadow Road & Crabapple Collection on Peters Hill, Arnold Arboretum, Boston

    Celebrate fall color at the Arboretum! Join the festivities for children’s activities, learn about the Crabapple and Maple Collections from staff and volunteers, and view our plants up close with our microscope station. Registration not required, but greatly appreciated.

    Learn more and register.

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    MassQ Ball 2022: Origin | Mythmaking Workshop

    Location: 

    Bradley Rosaceous Collection, Arnold Arboretum, 125 Arborway, Boston

    Led by Castle of our Skins’ Director of Education Taylor Lena McTootle, “Making a Mythos” focuses on the creative power of storytelling. Young participants will experience firsthand how fictional tales can reflect our cultural values and create them.

    Appropriate for youth ages 8-12 years old.

    Learn more and register.

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    The Quest to Image Black Holes

    Location: 

    Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian—Online

    Join the CfA live from the Smithsonian Castle in Washington, DC to learn about exciting new results from the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT), the team that brought us the first-ever image of a black hole!

    Moderated by Smithsonian Under Secretary for Science and Research and former Chief Scientist at NASA, Dr. Ellen Stofan, this event will be live streamed and is open to the public. Panelists will include Shep Doeleman, founding director of the EHT; Kari Haworth chief technology officer of the CfA; and astrophysicists Angelo Ricarte and Paul Tiede.

    ...

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    After-School Animal Encounters: Teeming Tidepools

    Location: 

    Harvard Museums of Science & Culture—Online

    Tidepools exist where the land meets the ocean and the amazingly resilient creatures that live there manage the challenges of both environments. From swimming and climbing to burrowing, animals in tidepools have adapted many behaviors to live in an ever-changing world. Join human museum staffers Javier and Ryan as they lead you in a 45-minute program with live ocean invertebrates. This event will be fun for the whole family so bring your questions and sense of wonder.

    ...

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    Observatory Night: Cosmic Explosions, from Supernovae to Tidal Disruption Events

    Location: 

    Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian—Online, Livestream

    The biggest explosions in the universe dwarf any we see on Earth. In space, we regularly witness exploding stars that can shine brighter than the rest of a galaxy as a supernova, or a black hole ripping apart a star that's visible from billions of light years away in what's called a Tidal Disruption Event (TDE). In this talk, astrophysicist Yvette Cendes will discuss how we observe cosmic explosions from Earth and learn about them, from Chinese records thousands of years ago to her modern-day observations as a radio astronomer. This will include Yvette's research on supernovae, such as...

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    National Fossil Day

    Location: 

    Harvard Museums of Science & Culture—Online

    Have you ever wondered what it is like to be a paleontologist? Celebrate National Fossil Day—an event organized by the National Park Service—with Harvard paleontologists! Take a close look at museum fossils and learn how they are used to help solve mysteries about ancient life. What amazing creatures lived together in ancient oceans? How do fossil tracks, traces, and burrows help us understand how extinct animals lived? How can we reconstruct an animal from just its bones? How did dinosaurs get so big? Bring your curiosity and questions to this online event for kids and families!

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    After-School Animal Encounters: Radical Reptiles

    Location: 

    Harvard Museums of Science & Culture—Online

    What might your life be like if you spent half your day on land and the other half in the ocean? How would you hunt for food if you were only a few inches long? Is one type of snake really all that different from another? Get the answers to these questions and more as human museum staffers Javier and Ryan introduce you to several live animals. Each month we will discuss a different theme while feeding and interacting with some of the museum’s incredible animals!

    Reptiles have lived on Earth for millions of years and over that time have evolved some amazing characteristics and...

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    Afterschool Animal Encounters: Pint-Sized Predators

    Location: 

    Harvard Museums of Science & Culture—Online

    What might your life be like if you spent half your day on land and the other half in the ocean? How would you hunt for food if you were only a few inches long? Is one type of snake really all that different from another? Get the answers to these questions and more as human museum staffers Javier and Ryan introduce you to several live animals. Each month we will discuss a different theme while feeding and interacting with some of the museum’s incredible animals!

    Predators come in all sizes. Imagine that you are only a few inches long. How would you get around, hunt for food,...

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    After-School Animal Encounters: Movement

    Location: 

    Harvard Museum of Natural History—Online

    Can you slither, hop, jump, climb, or even fly? How would you do these things with zero, two, four, or even a hundred legs? As winter melts away and warmer springtime weather blows in, all animals big and small are as excited to get out and move around as we are! Join human museum staffers Javier and Ryan in this live 45-minute family program as they discuss and take a look at some of our amazing animals in motion.

    Advance registration for this family friendly program is required.

    ...

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    What Spiders Have to Say

    Location: 

    Harvard Museum of Natural History—Online

    Consider the spider: eight legs, eight eyes, and a brain the size of a poppy seed. These are some of nature’s most amazing and charismatic creatures, and yet we know so little about their worlds. Paul Shamble will discuss the lives, habits, and marvelous morphologies of these animals—from sensory structures and cognition to locomotion and behavior. Understanding these creatures helps us better understand evolution and diversity—and leads us to ask what it means that even tiny animals inhabit complex lives.

    ...

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    Flap, Hop, Caw

    Location: 

    Harvard Museum of Natural History—Online

    Celebrate International Crow and Raven Appreciation Day by taking a virtual swoop through the Peabody Museum. These smart birds play games with each other, display anger and friendliness, and appear in cultural tales from around the world. Flap like a real raven with museum educator Javier Marin and learn more about the birds’ characteristics. Find ravens drawn or carved in Alaskan Native art, enjoy a read-aloud Tlingit tale and make a paper craft with Andy Majewski.

    Ages: 5–7 (with an adult, if needed)

    Cost: $3 members; $5...

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    After-School Animal Encounters: Humans and Animals

    Location: 

    Harvard Museum of Natural History—Online

    Life on planet Earth can sometimes seem unbelievably diverse and resilient, yet we’re more aware than ever of how connected all living beings are to one another. This special Earth Week edition focuses on some of the challenges animals face today, and on what we humans—young and old—can do to help. This event will be fun for the whole family so bring your questions and sense of wonder, and join Javier, Ryan, and some of our amazing animals as they lead you in a live 45-minute program.

    ...

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