Science & Technology   

Are you searching for an activity that offers hours of education and entertainment as we prepare to hunker down for another NH winter? Creating a backyard bird feeding station may be the perfect option! Join naturalist and environmental educator Kelly Dwyer as we explore the variety of birds you can expect to visit, the unique strategies they use to adapt and survive the winter, the best feeder types and seeds to attract avian guests, and tips to address challenges such as pesky squirrels and window strikes.

Life on Earth is characterized by both tremendous diversity (with over 1.2 million named species) and remarkable unity (due to shared evolutionary history). This course presents the broadest possible overview of life on Earth, as if we were walking the halls of the world’s most complete zoo, aquarium and botanical garden. Starting with a discussion of what constitutes life and how it may have originated, we will examine biodiversity from an evolutionary perspective. We will survey viruses, single-celled organisms, fungus, plants, and animals - emphasizing the weird, the wonderful, and what makes each branch in the tree of life unique. This course is intended for learners of all backgrounds, with no prior knowledge or experience required.

What do you think of when you say climate change? Are they things like colder or warmer winters or summers or rising sea level? Our class will discuss what science knows about Earth's short- and long-term warming and cooling cycles and their effects on our weather, sea level and all living things. Climate change is closely tied to what are called greenhouse gases in our atmosphere that have evolved over billions of years to keep Earth's climate livable for humans and all living things on the planet. Using that knowledge, we'll dig into the scientific evidence we now have that human activities are accelerating climate change and how, and to what extent, these effects are impacting us and our communities. By recognizing these impacts, we'll explore what we can do to adapt locally and globally to slow or stop climate change that might be happening too fast for human adaptation.

Scientists tell us that we need to eliminate global carbon emissions by 2050 to avoid the worst impacts of climate change. This course considers what actions might be required to achieve that goal. We'll begin by looking at four key variables that affect carbon emissions and how those variables have changed over time. Then we'll use interactive software to explore a range of policy options and combinations of options, with the goal of limiting the global temperature increase to 2 degrees Celsius by 2100. Having your own laptop is useful but not essential for this class.

What is the cost of our energy appetite in an age of climate change? In this one-session course, Tom Haines will take participants on a journey into Bakken oil field of North Dakota, one of the most heavily fracked regions and now the second-largest oil-producing state in the country. There you will learn about the scale of new oil production that is happening even as world leaders acknowledge we must move away from fossil fuels toward a system that is renewable and carbon-free. Tom will draw from his 2018 book, “Walking to the Sun,” ISBN# 978-1512600957, to explore alternatives that may help solve this challenge in the decades ahead. Tom will present his personal story as a seasoned travel writer and adventurer who journeys on foot through the various landscapes of our energy past and our energy future from Maine to California. He will tell his four-year-long story walking hundreds of miles across the USA to explore how we generate energy consumed across the USA. Tom literally kept walking to the Sun!

Using TED talks and discussion, we will explore how technology is tracking, analyzing and ultimately influencing our decision making (https://is.gd/DigitalFootprints). Freedom isn't free, and neither is the Internet. This course may help you pop your filter bubble and get a better idea of who is doing what to you, and why, when you are online. This is an expansion of the Digital Footprints course that has been taught previously.

Barry Rock, a former NASA research scientist and currently Professor Emeritus at UNH, has developed a K-12 STEM outreach program that engages students in learning about the problem of plastic trash in large gyres in the world's oceans and the potential use of observation and detection of such trash from the International Space Station (ISS). Once the plastic debris is located, the latitude and longitude position of the trash is provided to a fleet of ships, which collect and remove hundreds of tons of trash, returning it to land for repurposing. The gyre targeted is in the north Pacific, referred to in the media as the "Great Pacific Garbage Patch.” Students join with Professor Rock to study visual images of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch acquired by the Sally Ride EarthKAM aboard the ISS. Sally Ride, the first American woman in space, developed the EarthKAM so that students would learn about Earth by seeing it from space.

Do you want to see your friends and family members in a virtual setting? You can also conduct meetings for other organizations. As a follow-up to Zoom 101, this class covers how you can host meetings yourself using the Zoom online platform. You can subscribe to a free or paid account, depending on features. You will learn how to sign up for a subscription, schedule meetings, use security measures, host meetings, take polls, share documents, and use break out rooms. For those who have enjoyed participating in Zoom meetings, we will prepare you to take a step forward so you can invite others to join you for social or other types of gatherings.