In-person Program: Join other night owls as you immerse yourself in a unique Smithsonian evening experience at the Natural History Museum. Wander through the museum's galleries and enjoy special activities related to fossils, dinosaurs, and the ocean. Geared for children ages 8 to 14 years old, accompanied by an adult.

Charles Jones, a professor of religion at Catholic University of America, explores the differences in how Western and Asian religions embrace dissimilar concepts of humanity—and how that plays into specific problems of moral reasoning and ideas about human destiny with unexpected outcomes.

By 1830, Washington, D.C. was one of the nation’s most important sites for the interstate slave trade. In response, the region’s abolitionist movement became particularly important. Join poet and author Kim Roberts as she traces the abolitionist history of the region and highlights writers whose poems were seen as unique forms of moral persuasion on the subjects of slavery and abolition.

Everyone makes mistakes. But were the signature theories of great scientists like Charles Darwin, Lord Kelvin, Linus Pauling, Fred Hoyle, and Albert Einstein free of blunders? Absolutely not. Distinguished astrophysicist Mario Livio demonstrates that mistakes are an essential part of scientific progress.

For thousands of years the Mediterranean Basin has nurtured creative and powerful cultures. Alice C. Hunsberger, a professor of Islamic culture, explores Cordoba, Venice, and Cairo as key cities around the Mediterranean where the interplay of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam flourished in rich and complex cultures during the millennium between 500 and 1500 A.D.

Sharks are some of the most fascinating, ecologically important, threatened, and misunderstood animals on Earth. Touching on everything from Shark Week to shark fin soup, overfishing to marine sanctuaries, conservation biologist David Shiffman reveals why these iconic predators are in trouble, why we should care, and how scientists, conservationists, and individuals can save them.

The Baroque period is characterized by the spirit of competition among great painters, sculptors, and architects. Art historian Aneta Georgievska Shine explores the spirit of admiration and rivalry that shaped the work of Caravaggio and Bernini, both in relation to Michelangelo and their own contemporaries. (World Art History Certificate elective, 1/2 credit)

You’ll be shaken, if not stirred, by this multimedia presentation—unredacted and for your eyes only!—where the mission is to crack the code behind the high-tech glamour, globetrotting excitement, and enduring popularity of the 007 film cycle.