Patty Costello, PhD in Neuroscience and picture book author, presents an engaging and interactive lecture based on the latest psychological research on libraries and books as teaching tools for children. The first part of the lecture discusses how and why parents can create an enriched literacy environment. Other topics include a dialogue on the pros and cons of teaching kids about race and stereotypes followed by a lesson on implicit bias. The talk concludes with an overview on the future of children’s literature, and why an active imagination is an important component for raising your children to be citizens of a diverse world. A range of resources designed to empower parents in creating enriched literacy environments will also be provided. Ages 18 and up.

The world’s islands represent the greatest concentration of both biodiversity and species extinctions. Home to plants and animals that are often evolutionarily distinctive and highly vulnerable to non-native invasive species, islands present an incredible opportunity for highly impactful and successful conservation interventions. On islands, invasive species have been proven to be a leading cause of extinctions, and thus of biodiversity loss globally. Removing this threat, particularly invasive mammals, is one of the most critical interventions for saving threatened plants and animals and restoring island ecosystems, with remarkable recovery of native species worldwide. Island Conservation is an international, not-for-profit conservation organization with a mission of preventing extinctions by removing invasive species from islands. Join Dr. Nick Holmes, Director of Science for Island Conservation, to learn more about the incredible impact of restoring islands to save species. Learn more at www.islandconservation.org.

Nick’s career and passion focus on research program management and conservation ecology. He earned his PhD from the University of Tasmania, Australia, working with the Australian Antarctic Division to develop best-practice guidelines for managing human impacts to seabirds in the subantarctic. Prior to joining Island Conservation, Nick managed the Kaua‘i Endangered Seabird Recovery Project at the Pacific Cooperative Studies Unit, University of Hawai‘i, developing and implementing recovery actions for Newell’s Shearwaters, Hawai‘ian Petrels and Band-rumped Storm-petrels. He brings to Island Conservation more than ten years of experience in conservation biology, with research and management expertise in seabirds, population modeling, endangered species recovery, environmental impact assessment, human-wildlife interactions, and monitoring programs. His experience includes a strong focus on island conservation and ecology, including time spent living and working on islands in the subantarctic, Antarctica, Hawai‘i, and Australia. His professional goal is facilitating practical conservation outcomes based on sound science.