Are you ready to get your hands on science? At the Texas Science Festival happening now there are many free opportunities for lifelong learners and school children and youth to try something new, from peering through telescopes to crafting inventions of their own making to handling bones, fossils and replicas of dinosaurs, mastodons and more. The celebration kicked off this week and runs through March 4. In addition to more than a dozen virtual events, this year's festival includes several in-person events with interactive components.
STEM Girl Day
On Saturday, Feb. 25 between 11:30 a.m. and 4 p.m., UT Austin's Women in STEM (WiSTEM) hosts the national award-winning STEM Girl Day. K-8th graders participate in more than 100 hands-on activities scattered across the UT Austin campus. Work with a scientific glassblower as he brings to life made-up inventions submitted by kids in the Imaginary Invention Contest. Learn how to build a bridge using toothpicks and gumdrops and measure the weight it can hold. Investigate reptile and bird anatomy to learn why "some dinosaurs are not extinct," according to a Texas Memorial Museum paleontologist, who will be offering real bones and replicas of dinosaurs, mosasaurs and pterosaurs to see and touch.
"In the College of Natural Sciences, we like to say: Discovery starts here," said David Vanden Bout, dean of the College of Natural Sciences. "People join us to learn about what's new and exciting in robotics, computers and research about our world and the universe. When you are with us, you can find out how a telescope works, or extract DNA from a strawberry or fuel from water. Whatever you learn or try, you are experiencing a taste of discovery. And discovery is at the heart of science."
For more information and registration access for this featured Texas Science Festival event, visit the STEM Girl Day website.
Hot Science – Cool Talks: Climate Change Solutions
The Environmental Science Institute's (ESI) long-running "Hot Science – Cool Talks" returns in person on Friday, Feb. 24. The event is free and open to all, but registration is required. From 5:30 to 6:40 pm, community organizations and groups from UT Austin will host hands-on activities and demos related to the talk. Attendees can explore human-driven climate change through sound, discover the small fossils that help us to reconstruct the climate of the past and explore the paleoclimate through caves. Then at 7 p.m., UT Austin geoscientist Geeta Persad will discuss the ramifications of climate change and how we as humans can address it. Persad will highlight her research using global climate models, providing insight into our climate future and solutions at hand.
TEDxUTAustin: How and Why (Ticketed event)
For over a year, students have worked to organize the latest TEDx event for Austin, featuring a diverse lineup of expert speakers, including UT Austin faculty. There will also be performances by musical project "Wednesday Kid" and the group "Dance Action." An interactive showcase on site also will allow for attendees to engage in networking opportunities with local organizations and startups, including Texas Immersive, Texas Rocket Engineering Lab (TREL), Longhorn Racing (LHR), Paradigm Robotics and Texas Visual Arts Collective (TVAC)."
Taking place on Saturday, Feb. 25 from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., the event and its speakers will encourage audience members to ask questions like "how" and "why" to spark positive change within their communities. According to the program website, the aim is "to inspire our attendees to not only remember the hardships faced along the way for innovation and enrichment to prevail, but also savor the journeys that life takes them on, regardless of how small and insignificant they may seem."
"We are excited to continue making an impact and spreading ideas worth sharing," said neuroscience senior David Willson, one of the TEDxUTAustin organizers. Register here.
Interactive Tables and a Science Talk on Native Plants
On Sunday, Feb. 26, the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center and researchers in the Department of Integrative Biology and UT Austin Biodiversity Center will host interactive tables at an event about native plants. Jennifer Lau, a professor at Indiana University, will discuss scientists' and conservationists' efforts to restore native plant populations facing a rapidly changing environment, with her talk "Human Threats to Native Plants: Tipping the Balance Back." Opportunities to learn at the interactive tabling about science and nature from 1 to 2 p.m. include another event with the Texas Memorial Museum to learn about "Hefty Herbivores of Ice Age Austin" and explore the local diversity and plant-processing adaptations of Pleistocene mammals, as well as see and touch real fossils of a mammoth and mastodon.
To discover more about the Texas Science Festival and opportunities through March 4, see the complete schedule.
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