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July 2019
Live Animal Encounters
Join museum educators in the Earth Theater every day to meet members of the museum’s living collection. Get up close with feathered, furry, and scaly friends while learning about animal habitats, interesting behaviors, and exciting scientific studies.
Each day is unique, so you never know what kind of animals will be featured thanks to a rotating cast of cool animals! Meet a 6-foot-long python, colorful sun conures, or even some friendly skunks!
How New Minerals Influence Environmental & Materials Sciences
Presented by Travis Olds
Each year, about 100 new minerals are discovered and accepted by the Commission on New Minerals, Nomenclature and Classification of the International Mineralogical Association. Exploration of abandoned mines and reinvestigation of samples from classic localities have allowed mineralogists to discover more new minerals in the past decade than any before. Although crystal-chemical studies of synthetic materials have increased exponentially over the same period, some recent new minerals possess remarkably complex atomic arrangements and compositions that provide us with a more thorough understanding of the crystal-chemical features that dictate mineral properties and their environmental behavior. In fact, Nature is our most skilled experimentalist if you know where to look, and new mineral descriptions further enrich our understanding of the material world, promoting technological advancement and fostering better environmental stewardship. To ensure that mineralogy has a strong future will require diligent preservation of mining materials and history, as well as modernized curation methods and integration of new findings with both public and scientific communities. Looking forward, predictive mineralogy methods and big-data analysis are ever important approaches to understanding human-mineral interactions in our Anthropocene era.
About Travis Olds
Travis Olds, an Upper Peninsula of Michigan native, is a passionate photographer, collector and researcher of minerals. Olds obtained his B.Sc. in chemistry from Michigan Technological University in 2012 and received his Ph.D from the University of Notre Dame in 2017, where he explored the mineralogy and crystal chemistry of uranium. He currently works as a post-doctoral research associate at Washington State University, leading research efforts of the Department of Energy-funded Actinide Ceramic Materials Laboratory. Olds’ research is focused on the structure-property relationships of minerals and materials, using spectroscopic, diffraction and scattering techniques to study them at various length scales. With the help of an international group of friends and colleagues, Olds has discovered or been involved in the description of 18 new minerals recognized by the IMA Commission on New Minerals, Nomenclature and Classification.
Live Animal Encounters
Join museum educators in the Earth Theater every day to meet members of the museum’s living collection. Get up close with feathered, furry, and scaly friends while learning about animal habitats, interesting behaviors, and exciting scientific studies.
Each day is unique, so you never know what kind of animals will be featured thanks to a rotating cast of cool animals! Meet a 6-foot-long python, colorful sun conures, or even some friendly skunks!
Minerals, metals, and microbes in the Anthropocene
Presented by Carla Rosenfeld
Selenium (Se) critically influences both ecosystem and human health. In modern times, millions of people are impacted by Se deficiency or toxicity and in geologic history several mass extinctions have been linked to extreme Se deficiency. Additionally, Se chemistry forms the basis for several paleoenvironmental reconstructions of the Earth’s oxygenation history. Complex interactions between microbial activity and other environmentally relevant elements, however, obscure the ability to make accurate predictions and reconstructions. In this seminar, I will share ongoing research into how microbial activity and interactions with other metals or minerals can drastically alter Se oxidation state and form, including through biomineralization processes. I will also discuss the important role fungal biominerals can play in improving water quality and environmental remediation in contaminated surface environments.
About Carla Rosenfeld
Dr. Carla Rosenfeld is currently a Senior Research Associate and Associate Director of the Quantitative Bioelement Imaging Center (QBIC) at Northwestern University. She has a B.S. in Chemistry from McGill University, and Ph.D. in Soil Science and Biogeochemistry from Pennsylvania State University. Following her Ph.D., Carla was a Smithsonian Institution Postdoctoral Fellow at the National Museum of Natural History Department of Mineral Sciences, and an NSF EAR postdoctoral fellow at University of Minnesota Department of Earth Sciences.
Carla is a biogeochemist and biomineralogist whose primary research goals are directed toward understanding the chemical signatures of life and the interactions between living and non-living Earth systems. She aims to connect mechanistic mineralogical studies with ecosystem-scale questions. Her research program addresses essential questions related to biomineral formation and reactivity, element fate and transport, and coupled biogeochemical cycles by using cutting-edge analytical geochemistry and geomicrobiology tools.
Live Animal Encounters
Join museum educators in the Earth Theater every day to meet members of the museum’s living collection. Get up close with feathered, furry, and scaly friends while learning about animal habitats, interesting behaviors, and exciting scientific studies.
Each day is unique, so you never know what kind of animals will be featured thanks to a rotating cast of cool animals! Meet a 6-foot-long python, colorful sun conures, or even some friendly skunks!
Super Science Saturday: Scientist Takeover
Did you know that paleontologists, botanists, zoologists, and many other scientists are studying nature and making discoveries at the museum? Meet real scientists and learn more about what they do!
Super Science Saturdays is a program at Carnegie Museum of Natural History that invites visitors of all ages to explore a special theme through hands-on activities, experiments, demonstrations, discussions with museum experts, and more! Events are free with museum admission.
Live Animal Encounters
Join museum educators in the Earth Theater every day to meet members of the museum’s living collection. Get up close with feathered, furry, and scaly friends while learning about animal habitats, interesting behaviors, and exciting scientific studies.
Each day is unique, so you never know what kind of animals will be featured thanks to a rotating cast of cool animals! Meet a 6-foot-long python, colorful sun conures, or even some friendly skunks!
Live Animal Encounters
Join museum educators in the Earth Theater every day to meet members of the museum’s living collection. Get up close with feathered, furry, and scaly friends while learning about animal habitats, interesting behaviors, and exciting scientific studies.
Each day is unique, so you never know what kind of animals will be featured thanks to a rotating cast of cool animals! Meet a 6-foot-long python, colorful sun conures, or even some friendly skunks!
Live Animal Encounters
Join museum educators in the Earth Theater every day to meet members of the museum’s living collection. Get up close with feathered, furry, and scaly friends while learning about animal habitats, interesting behaviors, and exciting scientific studies.
Each day is unique, so you never know what kind of animals will be featured thanks to a rotating cast of cool animals! Meet a 6-foot-long python, colorful sun conures, or even some friendly skunks!
Live Animal Encounters
Join museum educators in the Earth Theater every day to meet members of the museum’s living collection. Get up close with feathered, furry, and scaly friends while learning about animal habitats, interesting behaviors, and exciting scientific studies.
Each day is unique, so you never know what kind of animals will be featured thanks to a rotating cast of cool animals! Meet a 6-foot-long python, colorful sun conures, or even some friendly skunks!
Live Animal Encounters
Join museum educators in the Earth Theater every day to meet members of the museum’s living collection. Get up close with feathered, furry, and scaly friends while learning about animal habitats, interesting behaviors, and exciting scientific studies.
Each day is unique, so you never know what kind of animals will be featured thanks to a rotating cast of cool animals! Meet a 6-foot-long python, colorful sun conures, or even some friendly skunks!
August 2019
Live Animal Encounters
Join museum educators in the Earth Theater every day to meet members of the museum’s living collection. Get up close with feathered, furry, and scaly friends while learning about animal habitats, interesting behaviors, and exciting scientific studies.
Each day is unique, so you never know what kind of animals will be featured thanks to a rotating cast of cool animals! Meet a 6-foot-long python, colorful sun conures, or even some friendly skunks!
Live Animal Encounters
Join museum educators in the Earth Theater every day to meet members of the museum’s living collection. Get up close with feathered, furry, and scaly friends while learning about animal habitats, interesting behaviors, and exciting scientific studies.
Each day is unique, so you never know what kind of animals will be featured thanks to a rotating cast of cool animals! Meet a 6-foot-long python, colorful sun conures, or even some friendly skunks!
Live Animal Encounters
Join museum educators in the Earth Theater every day to meet members of the museum’s living collection. Get up close with feathered, furry, and scaly friends while learning about animal habitats, interesting behaviors, and exciting scientific studies.
Each day is unique, so you never know what kind of animals will be featured thanks to a rotating cast of cool animals! Meet a 6-foot-long python, colorful sun conures, or even some friendly skunks!
Live Animal Encounters
Join museum educators in the Earth Theater every day to meet members of the museum’s living collection. Get up close with feathered, furry, and scaly friends while learning about animal habitats, interesting behaviors, and exciting scientific studies.
Each day is unique, so you never know what kind of animals will be featured thanks to a rotating cast of cool animals! Meet a 6-foot-long python, colorful sun conures, or even some friendly skunks!
Super Science Saturday: Pet-palooza!
Pets come in all shapes and sizes and can be covered with fur, feathers or scales! Create a toy for your fury friend, something special for your winged wonder or a treat for your scaly pal all while learning more about the pets in our lives!
Super Science Saturdays is a program at Carnegie Museum of Natural History that invites visitors of all ages to explore a special theme through hands-on activities, experiments, demonstrations, discussions with museum experts, and more! Events are free with museum admission.
September 2019
Changing Roles of Herbaria in the Anthropocene
Speaker: Bonnie Isaac, Collection Manager of Botany, Carnegie Museum of Natural History Many things have changed due to the effects of humans on the natural history world. Learn what a herbarium is, how the roles of herbaria are changing and what Anthropocene related projects are presently underway in our Museum’s herbarium. This is a Carnegie Discoverers meeting. Learn more about Carnegie Discoverers and how to join.
Find out more »Super Science Saturday: Fallfest!
Spend your Saturday at the museum celebrating one of our favorite seasons! Learn more about the critters that live in crunchy leaf piles, make a bird feeder for some winged friends and find out how local animals prepare for the winter months ahead!
Super Science Saturdays is a program at Carnegie Museum of Natural History that invites visitors of all ages to explore a special theme through hands-on activities, experiments, demonstrations, discussions with museum experts, and more! Events are free with museum admission.
Stream Ecology in a Changing World: a Multi-Scale Approach to Evaluating Threats to Water Quality
Speaker: Andy Turner, Professor of Biology and Geoscience, Clarion University Pennsylvania holds more than 80,000 miles of flowing water, ranging from small streams to large rivers. These systems are buffeted by an array of environmental challenges. An overview of the research aimed at understanding the consequences of these perturbations will be provided. The approaches span a variety of spatial scales and the need for multiple methodologies in studying ecological systems. The results show that streams and rivers are resilient to…
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