Smithsonian.com

Registration is now open for the Smithsonian Education Online Conference: Climate Change held September 29 to October 1, 2009. This installment of the online conference series that started this past February will focus on Smithsonian exhibitions and research related to the global issue of climate change.

The conference will feature museum curators and scientists presenting evidence, explaining the impact of such evidence and talking about the response. Scott Wing, Curator of Fossil Plants at the Natural History Museum, used fossils to estimate carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere millions of years ago and will lead the “Evidence” portion of the Wednesday, September 30th session. Other speakers include Bert Drake, plant physiologist and senior scientist at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center, Mark Haddon, director of education at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center, and Don Moore, associate director for animal care at the National Zoo.

Interested in climate change, but not based in DC? Don’t fret. Because it’s an online conference, you don’t have to be anywhere near the Mall to participate. The sessions take place in a virtual meeting room of sorts. Audio from the speaker is broadcast and conference attendees can pose questions to the speaker via a real time chat application. You don’t even have to be available during the conference to watch the sessions. All sessions will be broadcast live and archived on the conference’s Web site for future viewing. Discussion boards and additional resources are on the Web site.

The first conference in the series was held February 4-5 to coincide with the 200th birthday of Abraham Lincoln. All of the resources are still up on the site. In fact, comments are still coming in even though the conference wrapped up half a year ago.

The conference is free and open to everyone. Register now to reserve your spot. Until the conference date, follow researchers, curators and others on the conference’s blog.