Activities Calendar

This month's event has been postponed due to rising COVID numbers. Thank you for your understanding.

Join us to explore the facts and myths of dinosaurs, natural disasters, and science with fun, hands-on activities for the whole family.

Dark energy is the leading candidate for the mechanism that is responsible for causing the cosmological expansion to accelerate. Dr. Bharat Ratra will describe the astronomical data which persuade cosmologists that (as yet undetected) dark energy and dark matter are by far the main components of the energy budget of the universe at the present time. He will review how these observations have led to the development of a quantitative "standard" model of cosmology that describes the evolution of the universe from an early epoch of inflation to the complex hierarchy of structure seen today. He will also discuss the basic physics, and the history of ideas, on which this model is based.

In 2011, University of Nebraska–Lincoln chemistry professor Rebecca Lai contemplated how to attract more students to the sciences. She had just reread the entire Harry Potter series, and it occurred to her: What if she designed a course around the books’ potions and spells? Thus, the honors class “A Muggle’s Guide to Harry Potter’s Chemistry” was born! Dr. Lai will discuss various elements in our world that are also in Harry Potter's world, including gold (Au), silver (Ag), mercury (Hg), aluminum (Al), and silicon (Si). She will focus on the use of these elements in the wizarding world when compared to our “Muggle” world.