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If your Aussie friends seem to have a little bounce in their step it’s because today is Australia Day! Every January 26, all the states and territories of Australia commemorate the first arrival of British settlers. The holiday has evolved into a celebration of Australia’s independence from Britain and its unique diversity.

January 26 (which due to the time difference was actually yesterday in Australia) has only been officially recognized as Australia Day since 1994, but the citizens of that land down under are certainly making up for lost time with parades, concerts and fireworks. Not to be left out are our furry and feathered friends at the National Zoo. So we’ve gathered a few Australian animals that we like to think would be celebrating with their friends back home. Even though the weather outside is pretty brutal, stop by and wish our Australian friends at the National Zoo a happy Australia Day!

Emu. Jessie Cohen, National Zoo

Emu

The emu has the proud distinction of being the largest bird at the National Zoo. But with great size comes great sacrifice. Emus, as well as ostriches, are ratites, which means flightless birds. With the firework displays celebrating Australia Day, this might actually be a good thing.

Australian snake-necked turtle. Jessie Cohen, National Zoo

Australian Snake-Necked Turtle

What better exemplifies Australia Day’s celebration of a diverse population than the Australian snake-necked turtle? While most turtles retract their neck inside their shell, the Australian snake-necked turtle folds its long neck sideways into its eight-inch shell. You may want to keep your distance at a parade though. It’s musk glands emit a foul odor if they are caught or captured.

Laughing kookaburra. Mehgan Murphy, National Zoo.

Laughing Kookaburra

Named after a derivative of an Aboriginal language, the laughing Kookaburra will make sure you don’t sleep through Australia Day with its territorial song that resembles laughter. Nicknamed alarmbird, breakfast bird and bushman’s clock, the laughing kookaburra’s, “ha-ha-ha-HA-HA-hoo-hoo-hoo” chuckle is bound to light up any Australia Day party.

Double-wattled cassowary. Mehgan Murphy, National Zoo.

Double-Wattled Cassowary

The double-wattled cassowary may weigh in at as much as 128 pounds but that doesn’t keep this flightless bird from running at speeds up to 30 miles per hour and jumping as high as five feet. Some native Australian tribes even believe the bird has mystical powers and refuse to hunt them. One look at the dagger-like claw on the inner toe of a cassowary and I wouldn’t hunt them either.

Tammar wallaby. Mehgan Murphy, National Zoo.

Tammar Wallaby

The kangaroo might be Australia’s most famous animal export but the tammar wallaby is essentially a miniature kangaroo, making it by far the cuter of the two. With its 12-inch tail and muscular back legs, the wallaby is built for jumping. They mostly feed on vegetation but have somehow figured out how to survive in places with no fresh water by drinking seawater and eating salty sea plants.

Patriot or Traitor? — In a recently opened play, “Time Trial of Benedict Arnold,” the National Museum of American History explores the veracity of a widely accepted historical “fact” — that Benedict Arnold was a traitor. During the performance, which tells the story from Arnold’s point of view, the audience becomes the jury and decides for themselves whether Benedict Arnold was guilty as charged, simply misunderstood, or if the truth lies somewhere in between. Check out O, Say Can You See for show times and more details.

What is NMAI, Alex —  Last December, the National Museum of the American Indian was featured as a category on Jeopardy. Visit the NMAI blog to get a full recap of what happened and then check out the video, with bonus questions from the museum, to test your knowledge of American Indian history. The winners of the museum’s question challenge have already been chosen, so you won’t win a prize for knowing the correct answers, but you’ll possibly be smarter when you’re done.

Designing Men —Over on the Cooper-Hewitt Design Blog, museum director Bill Moggridge shares his inerview with Craig Newmark, founder of Craigslist, as the second part of his behind-the-scenes look at his new book, Designing Media. (You can find part one here). What’s Newmark like at home? What principles guide his site’s simple design? What does he think about creating a site that revolutionized classified ads?

We Have a Winner — The National Postal Museum has announced the winner of its month-long “Stamps Around the Globe” contest. And…(drum roll, please) the stamp chosen to represent the USA in the “Stamps Around the Globe” exhibit is the Moon Landing Stamp, commemorating the 20th anniversary of the Apollo moon landing. The exhibit will be featured next year in the upcoming  William H. Gross Stamp Gallery, an innovative, new exhibition space currently in the making.

Ash-Milby particularly likes Navajo Woman Drying Her Hair, detail seen here, a rare 1968 drawing by Gorman from the National Museum of the American Indian's collection.

Tucked away in a small, intimate second floor gallery at the American Indian Museum is an exhibition of the early works of Navajo artist R.C. Gorman. The show features 28 drawings and lithographs by an artist that the New York Times has called, “The Picasso of American Indian Art.”

Best known for his prints of monumental, Madonna-like Navajo women, R.C. Gorman (1931–2005) grew up in the southwest, and took inspiration from the works of Mexican social realists, like Diego Rivera and David Siqueiros. The show includes a variety of subject matter subsequently abandoned when Gorman became more commercially successful in the late 1970s and 1980s. A series of nude academic drawings accompanies early examples of lithographic prints, featuring both figures and rare graphic Navajo designs.

Last Friday the show’s curator, Kathleen Ash-Milby met me in the gallery to share some insight on the life and career of the internationally celebrated artist.

Gorman, she says, was “really struck by the boldness of [the social realists'] approach to the figure, specifically [their] monumental figures and this uninhibited approach to the nude. He was really inspired by that and wanted to bring that to the Native subject.”

There is a bold experimentation to many of the pieces on display, which differ greatly from much of Gorman’s subsequent pieces. “A lot of the works that you see here,” says Ash-Milby, “are not [what] people would typically think of as Gorman’s work.”

“His earlier work is so vibrant and energetic. . . it’s lyrical in a way that you kind of lose [in later works].”

“His subject matter,” she adds, “became much more narrow. He really switched over almost exclusively to printmaking and later you miss the nuance that you see in his early work, in terms of shading and detail. . .  You really see his hand in the work a lot more clearly.”

“He’s really experimenting more,” explains Ash-Milby. “He hasn’t really focused his body of work on any particular subject. I think a lot of that was related to his commercial success with the pictures of native women. He liked the idea of this heroic Navajo mother. You see a lot of the Madonna type figures. Actually one of the earliest prints he did, which is here in the exhibition, is of a mother and child.”

Gorman’s admiration of women can be traced back to his Navajo culture. Ash-Milby explains that the Navajo are a matriarchal society. “The leadership is from the women and it’s matrilineal,” she says, “which means that you trace your relationship through your clan based on who your mother was. So everything was really about the woman. Not just as life giver and supporter of the family. But also how the culture was passed on and how people related to one another. So I think there was that resonance for him—depicting native women and making them the subject of his work.”

When asked about her favorite artwork in the collection, Ash-Milby points to the charcoal drawing Navajo Woman Drying her Hair (detail pictured above). The drawing, she says, is very sensuous. “He’s got that same approach to the nude that you see in a lot of [drawings and paintings by] Degas.” Ash-Milby likens this piece to Degas’ series of bathing women, who pose unaware of the viewer and are comfortable in their natural state.

“In a lot of ways it is this depiction of women, this affection he has [that fascinates viewers]. He doesn’t glamorize native women, they’re very real. They feel very solid and I think that a lot of people can relate to that.”

Many people are familiar with the artist’s imagery, says Ash-Milby; but of the museum’s collection of the artist’s earlier work, “It’s really a treat.”

The Smithsonian's online conference series continues tomorrow at 11 AM EST with "Study the Land." Photo courtesy of the Smithsonian Center for Education and Museum Studies

Calling all teachers, students, and environmentalists! Do you wish you could do more to help protect the planet (besides recycling) but are unsure of what or how? Get set to explore, connect and then act on what you’ve learned at the the Smithsonian’s Shout Online Conference Series. And all from the comfort of your own home, classroom, or workspace. Excited yet?

Tomorrow, Smithsonian experts, students, educators and environmental professionals from across the U.S. and around the world will take part in this exciting new challenge to protect the environment. The four-part conference series is free, but participants must register ahead of time.

Each session lasts about an hour and you get to learn and connect with people from around the world in real time. You can even ask questions and contribute your own ideas and thoughts to the conversation.

“You are interacting with experts at the Smithsonian and people interested in global issues around the world so it’s a very diverse group and a rich exchange of ideas,” said the program’s director Lynn-Steven Engelke. But more than that, “it’s not just to learn about it, but to learn about what you can do to deal with some of the issues that we all face.”

Last November, the first session discussed the theme, “Live with the Land,” which included the following topics: a discussion on the impact of deer in forest conservation, the importance of documenting landscapes, and monitoring tree growth around the world. All of these sessions remain available online and you can still watch a recording of each one.

The second part of this series, “Study the Land,” begins tomorrow, Wednesday, January 26.  This time, experts discuss the role of natural history in conservation, why Charles Darwin’s work is still relevant today, and how students around the world can contribute scientific data to an exciting new research effort called the “Tree Branding Project.”

The first session begins at 11:00 AM EST/4 PM GMT.  Register here to be a part of the conversation and then help spread the word. Future sessions will be held every other month, from 1:00 to 4:00 PM EST.

Check back a month before each event for more details on the sessions. Change the Land—Wednesday, March 16, 2011;  Sustain the Land— Wednesday, May 18, 2011; Value the Land — Wednesday, July 13, 2001; Celebrate the Land — Wednesday, September 21, 2001. The Smithsonian program is a partnership with Microsoft Partners in Learning and TakingITGlobal.

Robert Mills' Design for the Smithsonian Institution Building (1846). Image courtesy of the Smithsonian Institution Archives.

Monday, January 24: Meet an Oceanographer: The Sant Ocean Hall

Get your pressing marine biology questions answered in the Sant Ocean Hall. Meet the scientist stationed within the exhibition, who will show collections specimens or artifacts (including some under the microscope) with visitors, and learn about  everything from recent field studies, new discoveries and voyages to the hot spots of scientific inquiry. Free. Natural History Museum, 1:00-3:00 PM

Tuesday, January 25: The Crocheter Is In: The Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef

Meet one of the contributors to The Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef! Stationed within the exhibition, volunteers crochet specimens while teaching visitors about the art, science and mathematics behind the exhibit. Today’s program is presented by Rebecca Gordon. Free. Natural History Museum, 1:00-5:00 PM.

Wednesday, January 26: Shout Online Conference Series: “Study the Land”

To extend the learning experience beyond the classroom, the Smithsonian in its innovative online program, Learning and TakingITGlobal, brings to educators and students a year-long series of web-based learning experiences addressing environmental issues globally.

In this special web seminar, “Study the Land” invites students and educators to join Smithsonian experts in the following two sessions to discuss the environment from a variety of perspectives—scientific, historical, cultural and artistic. Sessions are as follows:

Session 1: How do we understand biodiversity and sustain our natural heritage? (11:00 AM)
W. John Kress, director of the Smithsonian’s Consortium for Understanding and Sustaining a Biodiverse Planet and curator of botany at the National Museum of Natural History, explores connections between sustaining biodiversity and our natural heritage.

Session 2: Smithsonian Tree Banding Project: Climate, Classrooms, and Trees (1:00 PM)
Forest ecologist Dr. Geoffrey “Jess” Parker and education specialist Josh Falk, both of the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center, discuss in depth the Smithsonian Tree Banding Project (starting January 2011), in which students around the globe monitor the rate at which their local trees grow and learn how that rate corresponds with the climate.

Session 3: Charles Darwin in the Islands: Evolution, Adaptation, and Sustaining our Natural Heritage (7:00 PM)

Dr. W. John Kress, Curator and Research Scientist at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, will discuss how these observations reinforce our ideas on how plants and animals evolve according to the changes, caused by both natural and human actions, in their habitats.

These seminars are online only. This event is free, but online registration is required.

Thursday, January 27: Erased: Limits and Borders

Artist and author Harry Gamboa Jr. will reflect on the social and personal conditions of Chicanos during the second half of the 20th century, focusing on the development of Asco, a Los Angeles arts group whose key performances include Walking Mural, Instant Mural, and Spring Paint LACMA, and various aspects of performance art. Gamboa will also discuss the fotonovela through an examination of his black and white photography, its role in representing Chicano iconography, and the traditional media’s response to his work. Free. American Art Museum, 7:00 PM.

Friday, January 29: My Tehran for Sale

Get an insider’s view of Tehran’s thriving, rebellious culture of artists, poets, singers and dancers through this film that tells the story of an actress who rebels against authority. According to the Global Film Initiative, “Poet-turned-filmmaker Granaz Moussavi boldly registers the trials of a modern woman struggling to flourish in Iran’s contemporary political climate.” The film will be presented in Persian with English subtitles. Free. Freer, 7:00 PM.

For updates on all exhibitions and events, visit our companion site, goSmithsonian.com