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- 3-Course Package - Spring
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Fee: $200.00
This 3-course package allows you to select 3 spring courses for $200. This applies to 3-, 4- and 5-week courses. Add this package to your cart and sign up for courses in the same transaction or later. Sign up one at a time or all 3 at once. Package cannot be applied retroactively. Limit 1 package per person per quarter.
*Osher Online courses and field trips are not eligible with this package.
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- 6-Course Package - Spring
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Fee: $400.00
This 6-course package allows you to select 6 spring courses for $400. This applies to 3-, 4- and 5-week courses. Add this package to your cart and sign up for courses in the same transaction or later. Sign up one at a time or all 6 at once. Package cannot be applied retroactively. Limit 1 package per person pre quarter.
*Osher Online courses and field trips are not eligible with this package.
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- Vera Rubin Telescope (In-Person)
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Speaker: James Davenport
Dates: 6/4/2025 - 6/4/2025
Times: 1:30 PM - 2:30 PM
Days: W
Sessions: 1
Location: UW Seattle Campus Allen Library Auditorium
Fee: $30.00
The nearly-complete Vera C. Rubin Observatory, located on a mountaintop in Chile, will capture the cosmos in exquisite detail. Using the largest camera ever built, Rubin will repeatedly scan the sky for 10 years and create an ultra-wide, ultra-high-definition time-lapse record of our Universe. Our speaker, James Davenport, is a Research Assistant Professor in the University of Washington’s Department of Astronomy, and Associate Director of the DiRAC Institute. His research program focuses on time domain and large survey astronomy, with an emphasis on magnetically active stars from missions including Kepler, ZTF, Gaia, and TESS.
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- Animal Behavior: For a Happier Life with Dogs and Cats (In-Person)
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Happy dogs and happy cats are easier to take care of and more fun to live with. Find out what will boost your friend’s happiness —and yours, too! This class will include an overview of the history of dog training and animal welfare practices. Get an update on the latest in applied animal behavior science. Learn how to understand what dogs and cats are saying by observing their body language. You will receive information on practical and inexpensive things you can do to make dogs and cats in your home more confident, at ease, playful, and safe. The class will include plenty of question and answer time where you can ask your behavior and training questions about your dogs or cats. Great information for shelter and rescue volunteers as well as anyone concerned about our overflowing local animal shelters.
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- History of Polar Exploration (In-Person)
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Speaker: Ross Coen
Dates: 4/28/2025 - 5/19/2025
Times: 11:00 AM - 1:00 PM
Days: M
Sessions: 4
Location: Mercer Island Community & Events Ctr
Fee: $75.00
The history of polar exploration is commonly understood in terms of the dramatic, romantic, and oftentimes tragic exploits of intrepid mariners such as Ernest Shackleton, Roald Amundsen, and Sir John Franklin. And while such stories abound in the literature and will be a significant part of the course, humankind’s connection to the Arctic and Antarctic touches on deeper historical themes such as nationalism, colonialism, science, geographical misconceptions, Indigenous cultures, racial theories, and the biological impact of cold. This course will trace the evolution of polar exploration in the 19th and early 20th centuries, focusing on the quests for the Northwest Passage and the North and South Poles.
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- The Superpowers of Birds in Migration (In-Person)
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Two million flaps. That's how many times a bird weighing less than a small grape must beat its wings to fly from its winter grounds in South America to its breeding grounds in the Far North. And yet billions of birds make this arduous journey twice a year, passing through our state in wave upon wave of flights in spring and fall. It is a wondrous phenomenon of nature, one that we are just beginning to understand. Come along on the birds' journey this spring, as master birder Connie Sidles explains, in a two-part class, the most recent science of how and why birds migrate.
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- The 1960s and the Breakdown of National Consensus (In-Person)
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Speaker: Dr. Nathan Roberts
Dates: 5/6/2025 - 5/27/2025
Times: 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Days: Tu
Sessions: 4
Location: UW Seattle Campus Allen Library Auditorium
Fee: $75.00
The sixties saw the fracturing of four narratives of national cohesion or consensus. The changes that came about between 1954 and 1975 introduced critical examinations of American historical narratives. In the areas of the Vietnam War, both economic and environmental changes, civil rights, and politics, enough Americans began to believe new notions about their national character that made previous national cohesion untenable. These lectures will illuminate how the sixties provided a critical turning point in U.S. national consciousness.
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- Confessions of a Met Opera Violinist and How I Learned to Love ‘The Ring’ (In-Person)
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Opera expert Erica Miner recounts her journey from her childhood as a young violin student to her 21 years at the Met Opera. In the process, she highlights her encounters with some of the Met’s leading opera stars of the time and describes what it was like to work with such luminaries as Luciano Pavarotti, Plácido Domingo, Leonard Bernstein, James Levine, and Renée Fleming. AND in her 21 years at the Met, Former Metropolitan Opera violinist Erica Miner once calculated she played more hours of Wagner’s music than that of any other composer. Here she discusses the pros and cons of her extensive and intensive experiences performing Wagner’s operas in the Met orchestra pit.
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- Beeswaxing Transfers for All Art Mediums, 2d and 3d (In-Person)
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Speaker: Ray Pfortner
Dates: 6/9/2025 - 6/9/2025
Times: 1:30 PM - 3:30 PM
Days: M
Sessions: 1
Location: Mercer Island Community & Events Ctr
Fee: $40.00
Beeswax is a fantastic medium to allow us to transfer any art medium, including family photographs, travel photographs, painting, drawing even ceramics, woodworking and sculpture onto wood, stone and tile. This allows a range of display options on the wall or on a shelf for simply enjoying, but also gifting and even selling as an alternative to a single original. Learn about the materials and the process, watching a demonstration and leaving with the knowledge and a handout on how to do it on your own.
For all skill levels working in any art medium, from casual or more serious photographers to painters, potters and woodworkers.
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The Age of Artificial Intelligence
We are in the middle of one of the largest and most important technological revolutions of the last century -- the rise of AI. While the idea of Artificial Intelligence has been around for decades, only in the last few years has it started to become a reality. It is now possible to chat with an AI expert on virtually any topic. AI can generate artwork, music, and even movies that are becoming increasingly realistic. You can even have a real-time voice conversation with AI agents that speak and listen like a real human.
But how does AI actually work? In this course, we will reveal the secrets of this magic new technology and help you understand not only how to use AI effectively, but also about the risks and dangers that AI presents to you, personally, as well as to society at large. We will describe how AI systems work and how they are trained. And, we will talk about the emerging trends and challenges for this field. No formal experience with computing is required -- this course is for everybody.
REGISTRATION FOR THIS CLASS IS CLOSED. This class is already in session.
- Dates: W, 4/23/2025 - 5/21/2025
- Times: 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM
- Instructor: Matt Welsh
- Class does not meet on Apr 30,
May 7 (9:45 - 11:45)
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