Presented by Wetlands Park Friends & Clark County Parks & Recreation
Wetlands in the Summer: An Evening Lecture Series is a free program.
No advance registration is required. All ages are welcome; content is geared towards adults. Light refreshments.
Location: Wetlands Park Nature Center, Auditorium
7050 Wetlands Park Lane, Las Vegas, NV 89122
Lecture: Ice Age Wetlands in the Las Vegas Valley
Speaker: Dr. Lauren Parry, Park Ranger, Tule Springs Fossil Beds National Monument
Wednesday, September 11
6:00 pm to 8:00 pm
For over 100 years, scientific investigation has revealed stories of our past at Tule Springs Fossil Beds. Stories of past environments, animals, and people have been interpreted from the rock, fossil, and archeological records of the Tule Springs area, but how have those stories evolved with us? This talk will explore the natural history of the Ice Age Las Vegas and how water has transformed the Valley for the last 570,000 years. Learn how science can evolve and reframe our past with new perspectives and technology.
Dr. Lauren Parry
Throughout her career and schooling, Parry has conducted fieldwork on Nevada's public lands, managed fossil museum collections, researched the lives of extinct mammoths, and is now helping to build a new fossil park from the ground up. She earned her doctorate in paleontology from UNLV in 2020 and enjoys using her background and expertise to collaborate with other scientists, artists, educators, and planners. Learning is her passion, and she hopes to connect the community to park science and place-based history.
Past presentations in the 2024 Evening Lecture Series included:
Wednesday, June 12
Amazing Geology of Frenchman Mountain and Rainbow Gardens
Dr. Stephen Rowland, professor emeritus, UNLV Dept. of Geology
Dr. Stephen Rowland
Dr. Stephen Rowland is a professor emeritus in the Department of Geology. He received his Ph.D. at the University of California, Santa Cruz, in 1978. Professor Rowland's primary studies are in the areas of paleontology, paleoecology, stratigraphy, and the history of geology.
Wednesday, July 17
Outstanding Hikes in Southern Nevada
Jim Boone, naturalist and educator, and creator of BirdandHike.com
Jim Boone
An outdoorsman since before birth, Jim camped and backpacked throughout the western US with family and friends. Jim worked 12 seasons in western National Parks and attended Humboldt State University (B.S. in Wildlife Management, 1987) and the University of Georgia (M.S. in Forest Resources; Ph.D. in Ecology, 1995). Arriving in Las Vegas in 1995, Jim did ecological research on the Nevada Test Site, spending 11 years with the Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Project. In 2002, he began building BirdAndHike.com, a website that helps people to find peace and
solitude in wild places and there by gains public support for protecting these places for future generations. In 2006 Jim started an environmental consulting company primarily engaged in desert tortoise surveys and enforcing environmental laws on construction sites. Now retired, Jim and Liz hike, camp, watch birds, work on the website, knock down abandoned birdkilling mining claim markers, and agitate for land conservation issues.
Wednesday, August 7
The Diversity and Function of Butterfly and Moth Color Patterns
Dr. Richard Gawne, Curator of Natural History, the Nevada State Museum, LV
Dr. Richard Gawne
Dr. Richard “Rick” Gawne is Curator of Natural History for the Nevada State Museum. He is an entomologist who works in the field of evolutionary developmental biology. Richard completed his Ph.D. at Duke University, and subsequently held postdoctoral positions at the Konrad Lorenz Institute for Evolution and Cognition Research (Vienna, Austria), and Tufts University (Boston, USA). In addition, he has been a visitor at several national and international institutions. This includes a Fulbright fellowship awarded to study at the University of Copenhagen’s Center for Social Evolution, and a stay at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History.
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