Columbia University's Manhattanville Campus closed out the year with several family-friendly events on December 8, 2018. Hundreds of children and adults attended these events, which were free and open to the public.
In the Jerome L. Greene Science Center, families had the chance to learn how the brain tells the body to move with fun, interactive displays and activities. This event, titled Let's Move It, is part of an ongoing youth education series the Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute hosts called Saturday Science.
At the newly inaugurated event space, The Forum, the Climate and Society M.A. students held a conference called Climate Matters: Building Literacy, Breaking Communication Barriers. Attendees heard about some of the hottest topics in climate, conveyed in plain language by the M.A. students. Topics included sea level rise, changes in hurricane behavior, understanding the wild fires raging in the western U.S., and the increasing weirdness of weather in our own part of the world.
Parked on Broadway and 125th Street, the BioBus welcomed young students to discover the excitement of hands-on science aboard the Mobile Lab, which is staffed by scientists working with state-of-the-art equipment. Children got to learn about the microscope and microbiology through a viewfinder.
At the Lenfest Center for the Arts, local high school students from Double Discovery Center, Frank Sinatra School of the Arts, The High School of Fashion Industries, Project Morry, and the Columbia Artist/Teacher Program's Our Word, read their original work. The event, Young Writers Present, is an annual activity that encourages local teenagers to join Double Discovery and explore their voice.
The Wallach Art Gallery featured a groundbreaking exhibit called Posing Modernity: The Black Model from Manet to Matisse to Today. This exhibition explores the changing modes of representation of the black figure as central to the development of modern art. The models’ interactions with and influences on painters, sculptors and photographers are highlighted through archival photographs, correspondence and films. The show will run through February 10, 2019.
The Wallach Art Gallery also held family workshops that taught artmaking and encouraged creative self-expression. Inspired by the gallery's exhibitions, workshop activities brought families together for fun and creative interactive learning experiences. Children sat on the floor of the gallery with materials to draw, color and paint.
This article originally appeared on the Columbia Manhattanville website.