For more than 20 years, on the Friday After Thanksgiving, the MIT Museum has hosted a hugely collaborative Chain Reaction in which simple or complex contraptions built by participating teams are joined into one massive Rube-Goldberg-esque chain reaction viewed by over 1500 attendees.  (See video from 2017.)  This year, the very last F.A.T. Chain Reaction will be held on November 29, 1-4PM.  The public can view contraptions, talk with teams 1PM-3PM, and engage in related activities.  The chain reaction will start at 3:30PM.  Buy tickets online by November 28 or in person on November 29 at the MIT Museum (starting at 10AM) or Rockwell Cage (120 Vassar Street, Cambridge).  There’s still time to register a team to participate by building a link in the chain (teams arrive for check-in 11:30AM to 1PM).

Moms As Mentors offers programs to support mothers as they mentor their daughters through community building, developing relationships, and experiential learning.  The organization will offer its Build Bridges! workshop at Dedham Country Day School (90 Sandy Valley Road in Dedham) on December 8, 2PM-3:30PM.  In it, girls in ages 4 to 7 will work with their mothers (or guardians, relatives, or special friends) on an enjoyable, hands-on STEM activity.  Participants will receive take-home resources and tips for nurturing confidence in STEM. Space is limited, and registration is required. A limited number of need-based scholarships are available. For more information, email Leslie Coles at lcoles@momsasmentors.org.

Celebrating a rare astronomical event — Mercury transiting the Sun on November 11 from 7:36AM to 1:04PM — New England Sci-Tech (16 Tech Circle, Natick) will open at 7AM and host a breakfast talk and viewing, appropriate for all ages.  The talk will explore how the transit will happen and why it is such a rare event.  (The next one will be in 2032!)  Coffee, juice, cereal, muffins, bagels, etc. will be available for a small donation.

Boston Tech Mom (“a parent’s guide to raising a future techie”) is a great resource for all things STEM around Boston — including her monthly posts about free or low-cost STEM Events for Kids in Boston. Here’s her Boston Tech Mom: Tech Events for Kids in November list of STEM events.

The Harvard Museum of Natural History frequently presents free, public lectures in the Geological Lecture Hall, 24 Oxford Street, Cambridge.  They are live-streamed, and recordings of them are available here approximately three weeks later. Here are two upcoming STEM-related lectures:

• Adversity, Belonging, and Survival among Baboons: November 7, 6PM.
• Paleovirology: Ghosts and Gifts of Ancient Viruses: November 13, 6PM.

Closing out Massachusetts STEM Week, middle- and high-school students gathered at the Newton Free Library yesterday for Think Big! — an opportunity to meet and learn from 18 STEM mentors with ice cream donated by Cabots! This was the fourth such event hosted by the Library, NewtonSTEM, and the John M. Barry Boys and Girls Club. Thanks to all the mentors for offering their time, insights, and enthusiasm. Thanks also to the Newton LigerBots for helping out.

The mentors’ fields included microbiology, running-shoe design, software development, biomechatronics, computational biology, ecology, chemistry, drug design, solar entrepreneurship, 3D animation, manufacturing science, applied physics, genomics, and more. Questions discussed in these informal discussions: What’s exciting in your work? What do you do all day? What impact do you want to make in the world? How did you get to where you are, and what would have done differently? How do you make an origami solar light? What’s important in running shoe design? Can planting a trillion trees save the planet? How does math drive drug design? Why is learning how to code important, if you’re not going to be a programmer?

The Harvard Museum of Natural History will host a free public lecture, The Peril and Promise of Solar Geoengineering, on October 30, 6PM at its Geological Lecture Hall (24 Oxford Street, Cambridge).

Students in Grades 9-12 are invited to participate in MIT’s Splash program of mini-courses taught by MIT undergraduates on November 23-24 (10AM-9PM on Saturday and 9AM-6PM on Sunday). The cost is $40 regardless of the number of courses taken, and financial aid is available. The open lottery registration is open now and closes on October 31, after which remaining space will be filled first-come/first-served. This year’s catalog includes over 200 courses in Computers and Programming, Engineering, Mathematics, and Science. Here’s a three-page list of them to skim.