Millis Public Library has received a grant backed by the National Science Foundation to start a science café and book club hybrid for adults!
PUSHING THE LIMITS is a science café and book club hybrid led by Millis Public Library Director Alex Lent and Science Communicator Robert Michelson. Each event is organized around a different theme – nature, survival, connection, and knowledge. The themes thread through moderated discussions during the events, which are based on recommended reading of popular fiction or historical nonfiction, and on the viewing of two short videos produced specifically for the project. The themes are basic and fundamental concepts that touch all of our lives, and STEM ideas and achievements are a part of them. The books and videos amplify the overarching theme that the story of humankind is a story of people pushing their own limits every day, and they highlight the ways in which science is a part of that effort.
10 copies of each book will be available at the Library the month before the discussion. A discussion will be held each month in September, October, November, and December.
September: Pushing the Limits of Nature
What does it mean for something to be “natural,” in the environment or in ourselves? If the environment changes, or we change, when is that change no longer part of what is natural? Is there such a thing as human nature, and can we escape it, or even shape it?
Discussion Date: September 18, 7-8pm
Book: When the Killing’s Done, by T. C. Boyle
Boyle’s book fictionalizes the true story of an effort to eradicate a colony of rats that had overtaken the Catalina Islands off the coast of California. The rats were not originally part of the island wildlife, but made it to the island by virtue of a shipwreck. There are all sorts of odd ways that species acquire new habitats. What is the difference between rats coming via shipwreck, versus larvae immigrating in the mud attached to a seagull’s feet? Is a human effort to eradicate a species different from one species removing another according to their predator-prey relationship? Does one seem less natural than the other? If so, why? What about habitat destruction? Is that or isn’t that natural? Why or why not?
Visit http://www.millislibrary.org/pushing-the-limits/ for more details and other discussion topics.
Issue Date:
September, 2017
Article Body: