“Life is Your Lab”: Science Festival Offers Expo, Talks, Film Series

As part of the 2014 North Carolina Science Festival in late March and early April — with its theme of “Life is Your Lab” — UNC Charlotte will present a Science and Technology Expo, a seven-event public science lecture series, a four-event film festival and a star party. College of Liberal Arts & Sciences students, faculty and staff are deeply involved with these community events, as presenters and volunteers.

All events are free and open to the public. For event locations, maps and more information, visit NC Science Festival or call 704-687-5743. All events are sponsored by UNC Charlotte in association with the NC Science Festival. University sponsors include UNC Charlotte Research and Economic Development, the College of Computing and Informatics, the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences, the College of Education, the College of Health and Human Services and the Graduate School. Charlotte Mecklenburg Schools and Discovery Place are community partners, and WFAE 90.7 fm is a media partner.

As the culminating event, the Expo will close out the Festival on Sunday, April 13, 10 AM to 2 PM, with activities including robotics, motorsports engineering, rocketry, virtual people, exotic plants and high altitude balloons. The event is for the science-curious of all ages, featuring well over 100 hands-on activities and presentations in chemistry, physics, geology, computer science, engineering and biology developed by the university and a host of industry and community organizations.

Star Party – POSTPONED DUE TO WEATHER

POSTPONED DUE TO WEATHER – The UNC Charlotte Observatory has postponed its second annual NC Science Festival Star Party, originally scheduled for April 4, starting at 8 PM. The observatory is part of the Department of Physics and Optical Science in the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences. The observatory is located near the Police and Public Safety Department building and North Parking Deck. Once a new date is set, it will be announced on the observatory’s website.

The UNC Charlotte Public Science Lecture Series ushers in the festival when renowned science author and New York Times science columnist Carl Zimmer presents in two free public events on Friday, March 28. Zimmer has written 12 books about science and hundreds of articles for magazines such as The Atlantic, National Geographic, Time, Scientific American, Science, and Popular Science. He is one of the world’s leading writers on the marvels of modern biology. At 3 PM, he will lead a panel entitled “What’s Coming in Genomics?” with UNC Charlotte bioinformatics scientists Anthony Fodor, Dennis Livesay and Jessica Schlueter. At 8 PM the same day, he will deliver a free public lecture entitled “You Are Thousands of Species: Discovering The Life Within You.” The lecture is co-sponsored by the North Carolina Science Festival and will be followed by a reception and book signing.

Going from the inner microscopic realm to outer space, on Wednesday, April 2, at 7 PM, spaceflight historian Amy Shira Teitel will present. Teitel, a science journalist and historian who writes the blog “Vintage Space” for Popular Science, holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in the history of science. She is a science journalist who writes about space for such outlets as Discovery News Space, Al Jazeera English, Universe Today and AmericaSpace.

The lecture program also includes a series of engaging public talks by UNC Charlotte faculty, discussing science topics that they are intimately familiar with as researchers.

• On April 1 at 7 PM, Mary Lou Maher, professor and chair of UNC Charlotte’s department of software and information systems, will speak on her research in human-computer interaction in a talk “Tangible Creativity.”
• On April 3 at 7 PM, Michael Walter a faculty member in chemistry who researches the potential of organic compounds for solar energy generation, will speak on “Juice It Up: The Earth-Abundant Approach to Converting Sunlight into Usable Energy.”
• On April 8 at 7 PM, architecture professor and director of the Laboratory for Innovative Housing Thomas Gentry will discuss his research work in the field of social sustainability with at talk entitled “Architectural Agriculture: Science, Technology, and Math in Sustainable Communities.”
• On April 10 at 7 PM, the lecture series concludes with professor of science education Ian Binns speaking on “Defending Science Education in the Tar Heel State.”

Recognizing the role that movies play in creating public interest in science, UNC Charlotte has added a Science Film Series to its Festival offerings for 2014. With questions such as  “Is that something that could really happen? How accurate was the science in that film?” in mind, UNC Charlotte has picked four films, ranging from classic science fiction to modern thrillers, to a sensational documentary and has added articulate authorities on the movies’ subjects to discuss where fantasy and reality either diverge or converge. The screenings are free, discussion is encouraged, and popcorn will be served.

The first film in the series is “Contagion” (Warner Bros., 2011) co-hosted by Discovery Place on Saturday, March 29 at 7 PM. This medical thriller concerning a deadly, rapidly spreading epidemic was widely touted on its release for its scientific accuracy, but the final word on that will be discussed by a panel of authorities, including real-life epidemic tracker and professor of bioinformatics Daniel Janies, Charlotte Observer health reporter Karen Garloch, and professor of science education Ian Binns.

From the scary present, the series then continues by exploring what terrified us in the past with “The Invisible Man” (Universal, 1933, starring Claude Rains), a classic horror-scify film. Adding a modern twist to the screening will be discussion led by professor of optical science Greg Gbur, who is both an authority on classic horror and a well-known researcher in…(you guessed it) invisibility and UNC Charlotte chemist Marcus Jones, who does research in chemistry and… light. The free event will be a Sunday matinee on March 30 at 3 PM.

On Sunday, April 6, the Science Film Series will continue with another 3 PM matinee, this time featuring the speculative scify classic “Jurassic Park,” (Universal, 1993) a film that both excited the public’s imagination about the possibilities of genomics and angered critics with its distortions of science. A panel composed of vertebrate biologist and ecologist Susan Peters, evolutionary biologist Adam Reitzel and genomic researcher Jennifer Weller will examine both the film’s wild speculations and its possible truths.

The series will conclude on Wednesday, April 9, with the screening of the critically acclaimed documentary “Chasing Ice” (2012) at 7 PM. This film looks at the controversial topic of climate change by examining apparent recent and rapid decline of arctic ice. A panel composted of climate researchers Matthew Eastin and Martha Eppes, as well as WCNC-TV meteorologists John Wendel and Meghan Danahey will give their takes on the film’s evidence and participate in a broad discussion of the topic.