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The Future of Climate Change: What Three Generations of Climate Scientists Revealed, Webinar, February 18th

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Photo: SERC

Tuesday, February 18, 2025
7 pm
Register here.

In 1987, the Smithsonian launched a futuristic experiment that would transform how we think about climate change. Inside small experimental chambers, a few scientists doubled the amount of carbon dioxide to see how wetland plants would cope. Today, that project is the world’s longest-running experiment on plants and rising carbon dioxide. And its home, the Global Change Research Wetland, now has six long-term experiments simulating different future climate scenarios, from higher carbon dioxide and hotter temps to sea level rise.

Join Smithsonian Environmental Research Center (SERC) for a special panel with three generations of climate scientists at the Smithsonian. Meet Bert Drake, creator of the 1980s experiment that began it all; Pat Megonigal, the current director of the Global Change Research Wetland; and Jaxine Wolfe, a technician studying wetland “blue carbon” around the globe. Find out what we know for certain, what mysteries remain, and why wetlands may be one of Earth’s greatest hopes for resisting and withstanding climate change. Part of SERC’s 60th anniversary webinar series.

Beavers and Why They Matter, April 1

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Photo by Amy Johnson, VWL

Saturday,  April 1, 2023
2:00 PM
Virtual On-Line Program

Free but registration required.

 

If you have walked Mason Neck State Park’s Bayview Trail, you’ve probably noticed the vibrant
wetlands about halfway along the trail. The wetlands have been improved by a colony of
beavers, whose lodge you can see toward the far end of the wetland. Would you like to learn
more about beavers and their impact on the environment?

Alison Zak, the Executive Director of the Human-Beaver Coexistence Fund (HBCF), will present a brief
history of human interactions with beavers over time, an overview of beaver ecology and
behavior, and an exploration of the benefits that beavers and the wetlands they create provide
to the health of our watersheds, landscapes, and communities. Park Staff will present a short
overview of how the beavers in the wetland along the Park’s Bayview Trail have changed the
ecology of the wetland.

Alison studied anthropology and human-wildlife conflict in graduate school, then worked for six
years in environmental education and outreach before founding HBCF. She is particularly
intrigued, inspired, and challenged by human-beaver coexistence work, because few other
animals have such an impact on the world around them. Alison is also the author of Wild Asana:
Animals, Yoga, and Connecting Our Practice to the Natural World, which comes out in June.
You can register for the program here.  Zoom login information will be sent to registrants on
March 31.