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.

The Girl Scouts of Eastern Massachusetts invite all girls in Grades 4-12 to their Virtual STEM Conference, March 20-21, 10AM-6PM. Choose your schedule among keynote addresses and workshops (Grades 4-5, 6-8, and 9-12). The cost is $30 for members and $40 for non-members, and financial aid is available. Register by March 14 as GSEMA Girl Scout Junior, GSEMA Girl Scout Cadette/Senior/Ambassador, or Nonmember or members of other Girl Scout Council.

WBUR’s CitySpace will present a free, virtual panel discussion, Leveling the Playing Field in STEM, on March 23 at 6PM. On Point host Meghna Chakrabarti will lead a conversation about ways to repair disparities in education, youth enrichment programming, recruitment, and promotion that cause Black and Latinx Americans to be underrepresented in STEM. Register here. Sponsored by Olin College of Engineering. Panelists include:

• Tarika Barrett – CEO, Girls Who Code
• Nigel Jacob – co-chair, Boston Mayor’s Office of New Urban Mechanics
• Adrian Mims – founder and national director, The Calculus Project
• Karl Reid – senior vice provost and chief inclusion officer, Northeastern University

The Christa McAuliffe Center at Framingham State University will present a free webinar, Global Warming Demystified, on April 22 at 5:30PM as the keynote of Science on State Street — Planet Earth Edition. It’s aimed at high-school students and older, but all ages are welcome. Dr. Jeffrey Bennett will speak about the science behind global warming and explain solutions that people of all political views can agree upon. His talk is based on his book, Global Warming Primer. Register here.

Tuft’s Center for Engineering Education and Outreach (CEEO) will celebrate Engineers Week with a free, online Design Challenge for K-12 students and their families on February 22, 4PM-5PM. Register here. While students design and build at home in response to the challenge, a panel of Tufts undergraduates will talk about engineering and their own paths to studying engineering. It will help if you gather ahead of time materials such as cardboard, string/yarn, tape, paperclips, pipe cleaners, popsicle sticks, paper cups, scissors, plastic containers (from recycling), paper towel rolls, felt/material scraps, egg cartons, etc.

Boston’s Museum of Science will host a free webinar, Vaccination Decisions: Recruiting for Clinical Trials, the second of three virtual town halls about the COVID-19 vaccines, on February 23, 5PM-6:30PM. It will address questions such as: How do we know that the vaccines are safe? and How can we ensure that everyone is represented in clinical trials? Registration is required. After presentations by the panelists, attendees may join small-group discussions to share concerns and ask questions.

The Newton North HS STEMentors are offering a series of free, online STEM events for students in Grades K-8, and there’s still some availability for this one:  Keep Your Brain Healthy, for Grades 1-4, on February 24 at 3PM. Sign up here. More info about STEMentors is here.

“e” inc.’s annual fundraiser, the Wild & Scenic Film Festival, will be virtual this year, on March 20 starting at 7PM, with . You can purchase all-access passes now, at sponsorship levels ranging from $25 to $250, to view any or all of these 11 films:

• A Walk Through the Land of 1000 Hills
• The Crown
• From Darkness to Light
• Land Without Evil
• District 15
• Nature Now
• Nigerians Fight to Protect the World’s Most Trafficked Mammal
• Tengefu
• Giants
• The Guardian Elephant Warriors of Reteti
• Words Have Power