South Dakota
Mines welcomes curious minds of all ages to its Spring 2024 STEAM Café presentations.
STEAM Café, an ongoing series of free informal talks
by Mines faculty, staff and visiting experts, is a partnership between the
university, South Dakota Public Broadcasting, and Hay Camp Brewing Company.
An acronym for Science, Technology, Engineering,
Arts and Mathematics, STEAM Café is held at 6 p.m. on the third Tuesday of each
month at Hay Camp
Brewing Company in Rapid City.
The 2024 spring STEAM Café lineup includes:
Jan.
16, 6 p.m.
Celebrating
100 Years: A Brief History of the Museum of Geology
Presented
by Kayleigh Johnson, assistant director of the Museum of Geology at South
Dakota Mines
Originally
founded with the university in 1885, the South Dakota Mines Museum of Geology
opened to the public in 1923. Over more than a century, the museum has remained
a popular destination for locals and tourists alike. Kayleigh Johnson, the
museum’s assistant director, will tell the fascinating story of the museum's
origin, highlight some of the major characters who developed the museum's
legacy, and discuss several iconic moments in the museum's history – including
a visit from President Calvin Coolidge, and the mounting of the fossil
skeletons seen on exhibit today.
Feb.
20, 6 p.m., Beck Ballroom, Surbeck Center*
Mines
Magic Show during Engineers Week
Presented
by Mines students with the ACS university chapter
Join
us as Mines students with the university chapter of the American Chemical Society present their popular “magic
show” featuring
science-based demonstrations, including the liquid nitrogen cannon. *Please
note: this presentation will be held on campus at the Surbeck Center’s Beck
Ballroom as part of Mines’ Engineers Week activities.
March
19, 6 p.m.
Extremophiles:
Can Underground Microbes Clean the Atmosphere?
Presented
by Dr. Bret Lingwall, associate professor in the South Dakota Mines Department
of Civil & Environmental Engineering
At
the Sanford Underground Research Laboratory (SURF) in Lead, billions of microbes
known as “extremophiles” live deep underground. These extremophiles could help
trap carbon dioxide gas in order to mitigate global warming. Dr. Bret Lingwall,
associate professor in the South Dakota Mines Department of Civil &
Environmental Engineering, is part of a Mines research team examining these
hardy SURF inhabitants and will discuss how extremophiles function and interact
a mile underground, as well as their potential role in atmospheric carbon
dioxide reduction.
April
16, 6 p.m.
Storytelling
for Just Environmental Futures
Presented
by Dr. Matthew Henry, assistant instructional professor in the Honors College,
University of Wyoming
In
the midst of the global climate crisis, transitions are often discussed in
terms of shifting from fossil fuels to renewable energy. But the term
“transition” also describes efforts to adapt and adjust to changing
environmental conditions in ways that are responsive to ongoing colonialism,
racism, and class inequality. The pursuit of this kind of “just transition” is
aided by stories that help us apprehend the causes and effects of structural
violence and use that knowledge to redress past harms and build livable,
equitable futures. However, storytelling and other forms of “non-expert”
knowledge are often marginalized in policymaking processes. Dr. Matthew Henry,
assistant instructional professor in the Honors College at the University of
Wyoming, will draw on his water and energy justice research and community
engagement in Wyoming and beyond to show how storytelling is critical to achieving
a just transition.
May
21, 6 p.m.
The
Conic Sections Rebellion: College Mathematics Textbook Cremations in 19th
Century America
Presented
by Dr. Travis Kowalski, head of the South Dakota Mines Department of
Mathematics
In
1825 and 1830, students at Yale University protested changes in their
mathematics curriculum by refusing to take their geometry exams; 43 students
would be expelled. In the aftermath of the so-called Conic Sections Rebellion,
students at Yale began the annual tradition of a clandestine midnight funeral
for their mathematical education, culminating with the burning and burial of
their geometry textbook. The tradition spread over the next 70 years across
American colleges and evolved into increasingly elaborate theatrical funerary
performances with sermons, eulogies, hymns, marches, and a growing cast of
mathematical characters – before disappearing almost overnight at the start of
the new century. Dr. Travis Kowalski, head of the South Dakota Mines Department
of Mathematics, will reflect on what this meant to students then and what we
might learn today from this strange bit of mathematical history.