Lecture – Shark Code: Lesson from Nature’s Fiercest Predators **Virtual**
Dive in and discover the triumphs of these fierce creatures with the one and only Mother of Sharks, Melissa Cristina Márquez, as she shares the life lessons she’s learned while traveling across all seven continents and staring into the eyes of some of the world’s greatest predators. Join her as she explores the secret lives of sharks, from their past to their perilous present, while also sharing how much we can learn from these animals.
Lecture – City Nature Training – I Spy with My Little Eye… Biodiversity! **Virtual**
Started in 2016 as a competition between San Francisco and Los Angeles, the City Nature Challenge (CNC) has grown into an international event, motivating people around the world to find and document wildlife in their cities. The CNC is an annual four-day global bioblitz at the end of April, where cities are in a collaboration-meets-friendly-competition to see not only what can be accomplished when we all work toward a common goal, but also which city can gather the most observations of nature, find the most species, and engage the most people in the event.
In this talk, you will discover how one of the world’s most popular nature apps, iNaturalist helps you identify the plants and animals around you, connects you with a community of scientists and naturalists and helps to create research quality data for scientists working to better understand and protect nature by mapping and sharing observations of biodiversity across the globe.
Lecture – Resilient Houston – Mapping Houston’s Urban Heat Islands **Virtual**
Join Marissa Aho, Chief Resilience Officer for the City of Houston, for this lecture to discover how the information collected will bolster initiatives to lessen Houston’s urban heat and how understanding the ways in which temperatures vary based on qualities of the natural and built landscape can inform how we reduce the impacts of rising summer temperatures in our local communities. The heat-mapping initiative was coordinated by the Houston Harris Heat Action Team, a collaboration of the Nature Conservancy of Texas, Houston Advanced Research Center, City of Houston, and Harris County Public Health.
Lecture – Saving Houston’s Biodiversity with Your Smartphone **Virtual**
Citizen Science: Save Houston’s Biodiversity with Your Phone with Jaime González, Conservation Ecologist
Houston is a pulsing biodiversity hotspot. Discover how you can help conserve diversity and beauty imperiled by numerous threats as a citizen scientist!
Lecture – The Technical and Social Dimensions of Renewable Grid **Virtual**
Climate change is the defining challenge of our time, but we have the tools to solve it. In this talk, Dr. Samuel Goodman will walk through the basics of building a renewable power grid using the technologies available to us today. He will show how each can be used in tandem to build resilient infrastructure. However, just because we have the ability to do so doesn’t mean there aren’t major roadblocks standing in the way. Dr. Goodman will also explore the major social, political, and individual barriers we have to overcome and how we can accomplish that.
Celebrate Earth Day with HMNS at home with Adventure Boxes!
ADVENTURE BOX – GREAT OUTDOORS
Learn more about our National and State Parks and how they provide a protected space for animals, plants and their ecosystems to thrive! Using the activities included, discover what makes nature so inspiring and make you next trip outside an adventure!
For children interested in: Biology, Environmental Science, Geology, Horticulture, Wildlife and Forestry, Art (Scientific Illustration)
Recommended Ages: 6 to 12
ADVENTURE BOX – SPACE
Our solar system contains eight unique planets spread far and wide. Discover the distance between planets as you create a scale distance model of the solar system. Then, use your creativity to design a planet of your very own!
For children interested in: Astronomy, Geology, Mathematics
Recommended Ages: 6 to 10