One hundred thousand years ago, Homo sapiens began to disperse from Africa, eventually populating the globe. This course will explore what the DNA, blood types, linguistics, and world cultures tell us (in maps and charts) about this – the greatest human migration of all time.

We will trace the evolution and genetic drift of Homo sapiens from the founding of the species to the early modern period to answer key questions: Why did humans leave Africa? How did we evolve into different races? In what ways are various languages related? And, perhaps, just for fun, what percent Neanderthal are you?

IMPORTANT!
1. CLASS LOCATION HAS MOVED TO CAMPUS CENTER, LITTLE THEATRE
2. Click here for address and parking options

This class features a lecture and field trip to learn about identification and habitats of the dominant trees of the Coastal Plain of Virginia. Using leaves, fruit, odor, and habitat, we will explore common plant attributes that can be used to help quickly identify indigenous woody plants.

The second class is an optional walk through College Woods to put into practice what we learned in class.

This course is a basic introduction to the science behind weather modification. It will present the fundamentals of cloud formation, the history of weather modification efforts, the science behind cloud seeding and the current technology being employed in cloud seeding efforts across the world.
The class will include three active learning segments
Adiabatic Cooling: Goal allow the participants to experience the temperature drop when air (gas) expands. Materials: 10 cans of compressed air. Discussion: how this temperature drop causes cloud formation.
Dry ice seeding of supercooled clouds: Goal allow the participants to observe the changes in clouds when seeded with dry ice. Materials: one pound dry ice, tongs, ice chest capable of being cooled to -15 C, black velvet cloth. Discussion: Implications of being able to initiate glaciation in supercooled clouds/fog.
Cloud Seeding: Discussion after viewing “How Cloud Seeding Works”, Comet/MetEd on-line learning module (no cost module)
https://www.meted.ucar.edu/index.php

Open source software allows individuals and small businesses to implement sophisticated technologies previosly accessible only to corporations with substantial IT budgets.  Not only is open source software free to install and use, it better secures both technical systems and private data.  

From operating systems and applications for servers, desktop PCs and smartphones to firewall, home automation and other specialty ""appliances,"" the breadth of open source software continues to grow.  Many of these offerings have modest hardware requirements allowing you to breath new life into your old desktop and notebook PCs you thought were destined for the trash heap.

As government officials and security experts raise concerns about back doors in devices and software produced in China and domestic tech companies load their offerings with spyware and data collection algorithms which threaten personal privacy, the code transparency that is the foundation of the open source
concept has never been more important.  Learn how you can use that concept to your advantage for minimal to no cost.

While the Apollo 11 and 12 missions were both successful in landing on the Moon in 1969, the crews and their challenges were very different. This class describes the fascinating, little-known stories associated with those historic missions. Videos will be shown that were made by the astronauts during those missions that capture the excitement and dread at key moments.  Informative and entertaining without scientific, engineering jargon.

Tides are an ever-present reality along our Atlantic and Gulf coasts. Occurring twice a day – or semi-diurnally – tides vary in height and time. Storm surges impact our coastline whenever a major hurricane or Nor’easter hits us. Together, tide and storm surge create a “Storm Tide," that can be cumulative in height if a hurricane strikes at high tide, or mitigating if it strikes at low tide. Tide height and interaction with a storm surge is affected by the phase of the moon and local weather (e.g., wind, barometric pressure). A tide surge is affected by strength and size of the storm, tide stage, and geomorphology of the near- and offshore topography – and thus, can be spatially and temporally variable. Join us to learn more about how these natural phenomena reshape the coastline.