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Learn what it takes to fly this Saturday at an aircraft show at the Udvar-Hazy Center. Photo courtesy of Flickr user Alaskan Dude

Friday, June 14: Drawing at Dusk

Aspiring artists, now is your chance to draw like a pro! Smithsonian isn’t giving you any excuses not to explore your creative side this evening: free materials, a clothed model and thousand’s of the world’s best artworks to inspire you. All ages and ability levels welcome. Free, but with limited space (show up early!). 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. American Art Museum.

Saturday, June 15: Become a Pilot Family Day

Airplane heaven is coming to the Air and Space Museum’s Udvar-Hazy Center. Today, 50 aircraft, from vintage to military to home-built, will be on display outdoors, with expert pilots to explain the skills it takes to fly them. Inside, flight simulators and hands-on activities for kids will allow visitors to put their new pilot abilities to the test. Free ($15 parking). 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Air and Space Museum Udvar-Hazy Center.

Sunday, June 16: Art Signs

Come witness the universal language of art this Sunday at the American Art Museum and join the Art Signs program, a monthly gallery talk presented in American Sign Language (ASL). The 30-minute talk will be given by a deaf gallery guide, and voice interpreters will be present for a hearing audience, allowing both deaf and hearing visitors to learn about art together. ASL is a completely different language than English, with its own set of grammar rules and syntax. Stop by the museum to learn about the art in two different languages. Free. 1 p.m. American Art Museum.

Also, check out our Visitors Guide App. Get the most out of your trip to Washington, D.C. and the National Mall with this selection of custom-built tours, based on your available time and passions. From the editors of Smithsonian magazine, the app is packed with handy navigational tools, maps, museum floor plans and museum information including ‘Greatest Hits’ for each Smithsonian museum.

For a complete listing of Smithsonian events and exhibitions visit the goSmithsonian Visitors Guide. Additional reporting by Colleen Connolly and Michelle Strange.

This statue of King Kamehameha in Honolulu is paired with another that resides in the U.S. Capitol’s National Statuary Hall. Photo by Flickr user Wally Gobetz

To commemorate the unification of the Hawaiian islands under a single ruler, floats, trolleys, marching bands and dancers parade through the streets of Hawaiian towns every year for King Kamehameha Day, June 11. In downtown Honolulu, thousands of residents celebrated the day a little early Saturday, June 8, with the annual King Kamehameha Floral Parade. The event included a float with a giant red aloha shirt, princesses on horseback representing each island and riders from the Sons of Hawaii motorcycle club.

The first European to set foot on the islands, Captain James Cook, was killed in 1779 as he tried to take a local leader hostage. The islands would remain free awhile longer, though not united. King Kamehameha fought for nearly 20 years to bring the islands under his rule, succeeding in 1810. He created a single legal system and protected the territory’s newfound status by prohibiting land ownership from non-Hawaiians while still opening trade to Europeans and Americans. But just one year after his death in 1819 Christian missionaries and European traders arrived in force, bringing with them disease that devastated the native population, as well as a new economic order.

King Kamehameha in a portrait that reveals his complicated role addressing both Hawaiian and European and American audiences. Albumen silver print by Henry Chase, circa 1880. Courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery

American colonists quickly took control of the sugar-based economy and in 1898 the country annexed Hawaii. The territory’s final ruler, Queen Lili’uokalani, relinquished the throne and Hawaii’s sovereignty only after an American invasion. She believed eventually the injustice would be corrected. Writing in 1893 she said, “I do, under this protest, and impelled by said forces, yield my authority until such time as the Government of the United States shall, upon the facts being presented to it, undo the action of its representative and reinstate me in the authority which I claim as the constitutional sovereign of the Hawaiian Islands.”

Set against this history, King Kamehameha remains a figure of pride for the islands, a reminder of a unique past. In a ceremony in D.C. celebrating the sovereign Sunday, June 9, Senator Mazie Hirono told the gathered crowd, “He laid the foundations for modern Hawaii by protecting the traditions and culture of his ancestors even as the kingdom grew and interacted with Western nations. His strong leadership during this period of great change inspires us all to work together to ensure our shared traditions and history can be celebrated for generations to come.”

Baltimore’s waste-to-energy station creates energy by incinerating waste. Learn about whether or not this process is right for DC in a talk at the Anacostia Community Center on Tuesday. Photo courtesy of Flickr user spike55151

Tuesday, June 11: Waste-to-Energy in DC

DC, like any city, produces a ton of waste. Environmentally-minded city residents recycle and compost, but is that enough? “Waste-to-energy” is the process of creating energy by incineration. Americans can be skeptical about the effectiveness of this process, but there is evidence of its success in Europe. Is waste-to-energy is right for DC? Have an opinion or just want to know more? Stop by the Anacostia Community Museum this evening to learn the facts and discuss! Free. 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. Anacostia Community Museum.

Wednesday, June 12: National History Day Contest

From June 9 to 13, roughly 2,400 6th- to 12th-grade students from all 50 states are gathering at the University of Maryland, College Park, for the Kenneth E. Behring National History Day Contest. The students, who competed at state and regional levels to reach the national stage, have completed tabletop exhibits, dramatic presentations, video documentaries, papers and websites based on historical research around this year’s theme, “Turning Points in History: People, Ideas, Events.” Today, the contestants are making a trip to Smithsonian to show off their work, so visit the Museum to see the country’s best history students! Free. 10 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. American History Museum.

Thursday, June 13: Nature’s Best Photography Awards 2012

Step 1: Preview these jaw-dropping photos of animals and places. Step 2: Go see them in person! The pictures are the winners in various categories of the 2012 Nature’s Best Photography Windland Smith Rice International Awards, annual honors given to the best amateur and professional nature photographers in the world. They just went on display last week, and will be on view through early 2014. Free. 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Natural History Museum.

Also, check out our Visitors Guide App. Get the most out of your trip to Washington, D.C. and the National Mall with this selection of custom-built tours, based on your available time and passions. From the editors of Smithsonian magazine, the app is packed with handy navigational tools, maps, museum floor plans and museum information including ‘Greatest Hits’ for each Smithsonian museum.

For a complete listing of Smithsonian events and exhibitions visit the goSmithsonian Visitors Guide. Additional reporting by Michelle Strange.

Knowlton on a research dive. The Autonomous Reef Monitoring Structure (ARMS) is in the foreground. Photo by Michael Berumen, courtesy of Nancy Knowlton

Dr. Nancy Knowlton is the Sant Chair for Marine Science at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History and a scientific leader of the Census of Marine Life.

World Oceans Day often prompts reminders of all the terrible things that have already happened to the ocean and the even scarier prospects for the future. While there’s no doubt that all is not A-OK when it comes to ocean health, it’s worth remembering that when people have come together to make things better, they often succeed. These success stories span the globe and the gamut of marine habitats and organisms.

One of the biggest impacts people have had on Planet Ocean is through fishing and hunting. The Steller’s sea cow was exterminated a mere 27 years after its discovery in the North Pacific. Fortunately, protections have been put in place for many marine organisms, albeit sometimes just in the nick of time. North Atlantic right whale numbers are increasing, and the sea otter brings oohs and aahs from admiring tourists in northern California. Fish numbers have also often increased with protection, either through careful controls on harvesting methods and amounts or through the establishment of marine protected areas.

Sometimes our harvesting has destroyed the very habitat that the creatures we like to eat create. Oyster reefs once dominated shallow waters along much of the east coast of the U.S. But massive dredging efforts left muddy bottoms that new oysters can’t colonize, leading to a collapse of the populations of these magnificent bivalves who not only nourish us, but through their filtering clean the water where they live. In these cases, active restoration rather than simple protection has been required. This is sometimes harder than one might expect, but here progress is also being made.

Hunting and fishing are not the only things we do that can harm marine life. Declining water quality and other forms of pollution, such as the giant dead zone that forms off the mouth of the Mississippi each year, can also be a big problem. Once again, however, restrictions on what can be dumped into our waterways have resulted in dramatic turnarounds. Over a century ago, Monterey Bay was a mess, polluted by the industrial waste from the canneries on its shoreline. But now its ecosystem is restored—sustained and even thriving as a standout example of how public education programs and healthy tourism can have great impact. We still have a long way to go with plastic pollution, but communities around the world have started phasing out the use of plastic bags. China’s five-year anniversary of its ban on plastic bags has reportedly reduced consumption by 67 billion bags.

Ocean warming and ocean acidification loom as larger threats over the long term, and here successes are  proving harder to achieve. But one of the important lessons of the last decade is that reducing local stressors can make a big difference, building the resilience of ocean ecosystems and buying us invaluable time as we figure out how to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide going into the atmosphere.

Bottom line? We need to think and act both locally and globally if we want to pass on a healthy ocean to future generations. In an era when catastrophes get much of the coverage, it’s important to remember that we can still make a difference. There are many successes to celebrate. Ocean conservation is working and we can learn from our successes.  But there is plenty of work still to do.

Camille Reed at her salon in Silver Spring, Maryland.

From her salon in Silver Spring, Maryland, Camille Reed spreads the message of natural hair to her clients. And it seems to be catching on. The products once advertised to black women in the pages of Ebony and elsewhere are on the decline. Between 2009 and 2011, sales of chemical straighteners dipped 12.4 percent, according to Danielle Douglas reporting for the Washington Post with data from market research firm Mintel. In 2011, the number of black women who said they no longer relaxed their hair hit 36 percent, a 10 percent bump from 2010.

Reed, a participant in a discussion about health and identity at the African Art Museum tonight, says she’s seen the changes too. She opened Noire Salon 13 years ago because she wanted, “young women to understand that they can be beautiful without the wigs, without the weaves, without the extensions.” Her second-floor shop sits right outside D.C., a hot bed of hair whose salons reported the highest sales per business in the country in 2007, according to census data. Offering a range of services from coloring to cutting to dreadlock maintenance and styling, Reed says she tries to use as few chemicals as possible and instead work with a person’s natural hair to create a healthy, stylish look. ”Girls are not buying the chemicals as much,” she says, “They’re still buying the weaves here and there because people like options but they’re not buying the harsh chemicals.”

The history of African-American hair care is a complicated one. Early distinctions existed during slavery when, “field slaves often hid their hair, whereas house slaves had to wear wigs similar to their slave owners, who also adorned wigs during this period,” according to feminist studies scholar Cheryl Thompson.

The history also includes the country’s first female, self-made millionaire, Madam C. J. Walker, a black woman who made her fortune selling hair care products to other black women in the early 1900s. Begun as a way to help women suffering from baldness regrow hair, her company later promoted hot comb straightening–which can burn the skin and hair and even cause hair loss–creating a tangled legacy for the brand and speaking to the fraught territory of marketing beauty.

An advertisement from the August 1967 issue of Ebony.

Reed credits celebrities like Solange Knowles and Janelle Monáe for helping show the range of natural hair styles. Image by Elle

Eventually the business of straightening won out. In the August 1967 issue of Ebony alongside a profile of a 25-year-old Jesse L. Jackson, a look at the birth of Black Power and an article on gangs in Chicago, there is a mix of advertisements promising better skin and hair. “Lighter, Brighter Skin Is Irresistible,” reads one for bleaching cream. Another single-page spread offers a 100 percent human hair wig for $19.99 from Frederick’s of Hollywood. Chemical relaxers were sold alongside titles like James Baldwin’s “The First Next Time.” As clear as it was that messages of inherent inequality were false, there pervaded an image of beauty, supported by an industry dependent on its propagation, that placed fair skin and straight hair on a pedestal.

When activists like Angela Davis popularized the Afro, natural hair gained visibility but also a reputation for being confrontational. As recently as 2007, black women were told by fashion editors that the office was no place for “political” hairstyles like Afros, according to Thompson.

Reed says the pressure is internal as well, “It’s really more of our older generations, our grandmothers and our great-grandmothers who were saying, don’t you do anything to rock the boat, you look like everybody else so that you can maintain your life.”

Reed’s own personal hair history is a deeply inter-generational story. Her grandmother was a hair stylist at a salon in Cleveland, Ohio, where her mission, says Reed, was to transform women and give them confidence. “My grandmother was about the hair looking good, looking right,” says Reed. In the context of racism, if hair was a woman’s crowning glory, it was also a shield.

Meanwhile, she says her mother taught her about cornrowing and her aunt, who was one of the first to introduce the track weave, showed her how weaves could be used to supplement damaged hair and not necessarily to disguise a woman’s natural hair.

Hair styling started young for Reed, shown in this family photo as a baby. Courtesy of Camille Reed

Reed at her prom, weeks after cutting off her relaxed hair. Courtesy of Camille Reed

In high school, Reed says, “I was the girl who had her hair done every two weeks like clockwork because that’s how I was raised, to keep your hair done.” Then, three weeks before her senior prom she says, “I realized, this relaxer life is not for me. All of this stuff I have to do with my hair, this is not who I am, this does not represent me…I cut off all of my relaxed hair, left me with about an inch, inch and a half of hair.”

In college she decided she wanted even less maintenance and began to lock her hair. To her surprise, her grandmother actually liked the change. “And we were all just floored because this is the woman we knew who didn’t like anything to do with natural hair.”

Now Reed has children of her own, a son and daughter, whom she is teaching about beauty and hair care. “I purposefully let my son’s hair grow out about an inch to two inches before I cut it because I want him to feel comfortable with it low and shaven and faded–and I do all that–as well as feel comfortable with it longer, a little bit curlier so he knows, whichever you way you look, mommy and daddy still love you.”

For her clients, the message isn’t too different.

Camille Reed will be participating in a panel discussion “Health, Hair and Heritage,” hosted by the African Art Museum and the Sanaa Circle the evening of Friday, June 7 in the Ripley Center.