The Arnold Arboretum's sesquicentennial Director's Series traces the Arnold’s significance in the landscape architecture movement, value for the people of Boston, and leadership in creating global connections between plants and people.
Panelists include:
Dr. Michelle Kondo, Research Social Scientist, UDSA-Forest Service
Rev. Mariama White-Hammond, Chief of Environment, Energy, and Open Space, City of Boston
Laurence Cotton, Consulting Producer, “Frederick Law Olmsted: Designing...
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.
Make a difference as an Arnold Arboretum Field Study Guide! Training for the spring season of school programs at the Arboretum begins March 29. We are looking for outgoing and mature adults who can commit to two years of volunteering. You do not need to know about plants, but experience working with children is preferred. If you are interested, please complete an application by March 11 for an interview.
Across the United States, children under the age of 18 can be tried as adults in criminal court. Although the practice is condemned by international law, we are the only country in the world that sentences young people to life in prison without the possibility of parole. At the same time, recent developments in neuroscience research demonstrate that the human brain is not fully developed until after the age of 25.
This program will consider the ways we punish young people in the American criminal legal system and how our policies could be reformed. We will bring together a...
Due to popular demand, we are offering another session of this free webinar. Led by naturalist and conservationist, Michael Wojtech, you'll learn to identify tree species by their bark and discover why such a variety of bark characteristics exist. Why do some species have smooth bark, while on others it is thick and broken? Why does bark peel? Join us to find out!
A plant that generates heat and attracts pollinators with its stink? Learn more about skunk cabbage in the Arnold Arboretum’s newest winter Wonder Spot, at the Arboretum meadow’s edge or online. Free and open to all.
Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian—Online
The first person who will set foot on Mars is alive right now. We believe this, but even if we're wrong we know the first crew to arrive there will look nothing like the ones that landed on the Moon fifty years ago.
Our world has changed for the better, and ASTRONAUTS tells the story of the women who built this better world. The main character and narrator is Mary Cleave, an astronaut you may not have heard of. It's not because so many people have been to space; only a few hundred have! It’s because this graphic novel isn’t about fame. No astronaut you'll ever meet took the...
Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian—Online
Join the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian for a virtual Public Observatory Night with guest lecturer Donavan Moore, author of "What Stars Are Made Of: The Life of Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin."
It was not easy being a woman of ambition in early twentieth-century England, much less one who wished to be a scientist. Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin overcame prodigious obstacles to become a woman of many firsts: the first to receive a PhD in astronomy from Radcliffe College, the first promoted to full professor at Harvard, the first to head a department there. And, in what...
Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Knafel Center, 10 Garden Street, Cambridge
Todd Rogers is a behavioral scientist and professor of public policy at the Harvard Kennedy School. Using his two decades of work in behavioral policy as a base, he will discuss his current research into what leads to welfare-enhancing innovations and practices. In particular, he aims to help scholars and practitioners design, identify, and invest in innovations that are likely to successfully scale.
Harvard Museum of Natural History, 26 Oxford St., Cambridge
Come see the world through the eyes of a scientist and explore what research reveals about life and our planet. Graduate students from the departments of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Human Evolutionary Biology, Molecular and Cellular Biology, and Earth and Planetary Sciences at Harvard University will share their research through hands-on activities in the museum galleries. This program is designed to actively engage families in learning more about science and exciting new discoveries in our natural world.
Hunnewell Building and Lawn, Arnold Arboretum, 125 Arborway, Jamaica Plain, MA 02130
Engineering in the Fog --make your own glasses to create your up close and personal Fog for ages 8 and up. One adult may bring a maximum of three children; age suitability listed above after dates. Meet on the Hunnewell Building lawn to the south of the building. Free, drop in, no registration required.
Dana Greenhouse, Arnold Arboretum, 125 Arborway, Jamaica Plain, MA 02130
Learn about seed biology, embryo dormancy, and factors present in woody plant seeds. The class will focus on seed storage and various treatment techniques, including over-wintering and aftercare. Appropriate for those who have succeeded at growing some plants from seed and are ready for greater challenges. Post-class nurturing will be required. Fee $55 members; $68 non-members.
Hunnewell Building, Arnold Arboretum, 125 Arborway, Jamaica Plain, MA 02130
Sharon Hessney, Writer and Moderator of New York Times Learning Network "What's Going On in This Graph?"
Graphs can go a long way in conveying information that might otherwise take several paragraphs to explain. But it is easy to misread or not fully understand the content and context. In this participatory program, we will decipher several graphs based on data from Arnold Arboretum curators and scientists. We will also look at the data...
Hunnewell Building Lecture Hall, Arnold Arboretum, 125 Arborway, Jamaica Plain, MA 02130
If you enjoy learning about plants and their unique characteristics, you can contribute to science as a participant in our Tree Spotters program. This citizen science project opens a window into the Arboretum's phenology: the timing of natural events, such as the leafing out and flowering of trees in the spring and changing foliage colors in the...
Hunnewell Building, Arnold Arboretum, 125 Arborway, Boston
In this introductory workshop on plant structure and function, we will focus on temperate forest tree and shrub species found around the Arboretum. We will... Read more about Botany Blast: Woody Plant Basics
Hunnewell Building, Arnold Arboretum, 125 Arborway, Boston
Without their leaves, trees can be challenging to identify in the winter. However, if you consider a tree’s branching structure and buds, you can often... Read more about Winter Tree Identification