Tonight’s edition of the Perpetual Notion Machine has a preview of this year’s Wisconsin Science Festival. Yes, despite the COVID-19 pandemic, the science festival will still be going on with about half the usual number of sessions. Most will be virtual, with some actually going live, and a few at various places around the state having safe outdoor events, like a corn maze. Joining us is Laura Heisler, director of the Wisconsin Science Festival, and Karen Schloss, a psychologist at UW-Madison, and with the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery. Karen describes that her research is to learn about and teach visual reasoning and perception. Much of her recent research involves virtual reality, and she will talk about its potential and future in a WSF session called Big Ideas for Busy People: Futurescape. The session will be held Oct. 15 at 5:00 pm.
Laura also mentions some other standout sessions. Kids will have the opportunity to interact with scientists and perform experiments at home. The Duck Pond will have a couple of drive-in science-related movies. Shane Mauss, a science and comedy podcaster, will have his podcast Here We Are available on Oct. 17 at 8:30 pm. And physicists Brian Greene and Janna Levin will discuss their recent books virtually live.
All the information about every session can be found at the website wisconsinsciencefest.org. Take note, that for those sessions that are virtually live, you will need to register ahead of time through a crowdcast link for that session.
