Newton’s high-school robotics team, the LigerBots, will host a virtual Hackathon for Grades 4-8 on April 3, 1PM-5PM. Students with or without programming experience will compete in teams of 2 to 4 to code the best animation in Scratch. There will be workshops for the first half of the event and prizes for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place. Register here, either as a team or an individual to be matched to a team. High-school students who are proficient in the Scratch programming language are invited to help out! Contact iris_yang@ligerbots.com or cmo@ligerbots.com with any questions.

On March 24, 7PM-8PM, the Blue Hill Observatory will host a webinar,
Taking the Fingerprints of Global Sea Level Change, presented by Dr. Jerry X. Mitrovica, Professor of Science in Harvard’s Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences and a recipient of a MacArthur Foundation “genius grant” in 2019. To support the nonprofit work of the observatory, a registration fee ($10 for BHO members, $15 for others) is requested but not required. Register to get sign-in credentials for the webinar and optionally make a donation.

Professional Women in Construction (PWC) Boston is hosting a free, online event — Full STEAM Ahead: Career Paths of Women in Architecture, Engineering and Construction — on March 9, 3PM-4PM, for high-school and college students (of all genders) to learn about careers in these fields. Register by March 8. Speakers include:

• Christine Bernard, Marketing Coordinator, Rider Levett Bucknall
• Chrissy Gabriel, Director of Life Sciences, Siena Construction
• Ai Kurokawa, AIA, Architect & Principal, Isgenuity
• Taygra Longstaff, PE, Structural Engineer and Deputy Project Manager, Arup
• Jamie MacDonald, Construction Project Manager, Capital Projects Management, Boston College
• Kelsey Rogers, Senior Acoustics Consultant, Acentech
• Caroline Fitzgerald, New England Client Relations, RMF Engineering

Boston College will hold BC Splash virtually — and free — this semester on Sunday, March 28, 10AM-4:15PM.  Splash is a one-day, student-run program in which undergraduates and graduate students teach mini-courses for students in Grades 7-12. Registration is required, and course selection is first-come/first-served. For more information, email bcsplash@gmail.com. STEM-related classes in the course catalog include:

• Infant to Teen Psychology: How We Become Who We Are!
• Forensics 101
• How useful are quantum computers?
• Introduction to Organic Chemistry: Medical and Daily Application
• Let’s Innovate! A Choose Your Own Adventure Game about Technology
• Psychosocial Epidemiology
• Intro to Programming in Python
• Math is Weird, Math is Fun
• Straws and Turtles: Our Global Plastic Pollution Problem
• Neurophysiology of Timothy Syndrome
• Global Public Health Issues & How We Can Help
• COVID-19: Understanding and Modeling Viruses
• Understanding Cryptocurrency
• Congressional Apportionment
• Pre-Dental Info Session
• Cancer: Investigations of Basic Biology and Public Health
• Intro to Game Programming
• How to Save a Life
• The Final Frontier: A History of Space Exploration
• Want to be an EMT?
• Math intersects Art: Tessellations!
• Ethics of Genetic Engineering
• The Science behind Photography

The Christa McAuliffe Center at Framingham State University and the Smithsonian will c0-host a free webinar, Women in Aerospace: Stories from the Smithsonian Collection, on March 17 at 5PM. The speaker will be Dr. Margaret Weitekamp, Curator and Department Chair of the Space History Department at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum. Register here.

The Christa McAuliffe Center at Framingham State University continues its season of free, virtual planetarium AstroNights events for families (ages 7+) with an online presentation, A Star’s Life, on March 19 at 7PM. In a 30-minute presentation (followed  by Q&A session), learn how stars are born, live, and die. View the presentation on Zoom (registration required) or the Christa McAuliffe YouTube channel, where you can view recordings of previous AstroNights events.