Planetary scientist and University of Texas at Dallas (UTD) faculty member Dr. Mary L. Urquhart will make a presentation titled “Understanding Scale in the Solar System” on Monday evening, Feb. 28, at UTD.
Urquhart’s presentation will be the fourth of five talks in the UTD Center for Science Education Research’s 2004-2005 Seminar Series for Life-Long Learners. The sessions, presented by members of the university’s Science/Mathematics Education faculty on subjects in the fields of science and math, are aimed at classroom teachers and other educators, young adults, parents and grandparents of students and others.
Urquhart, who worked at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Ames Research Center before joining the Science/Mathematics Education Department at UTD, will conduct hands-on activities to aid in understanding scale in the solar system, including the creation of a one-to-10-billion scale model of the planets and sun using everyday materials. The lecture, which is free and open to the public, will begin at 6 p.m. in the Conference Center, Room 1.112.
The fifth and final installment in the UTD seminar series will be a presentation on April 11 by Nobel laureate and visiting UTD professor Dr. Russell Hulse. In his talk, “Science, from Nobel to Neighborhoods,” Hulse will explain how the experience of winning the Nobel Prize led him to a new focus on bringing the excitement and adventure of science to new generations of students and adults through community-based science education.
For additional information on the remaining seminars, please call 972-883-2496 or visit the web site http://www.utdallas.edu/~rnix/quality/#seminar.