Armchair Adventures:
Earthwatch Expeditions & Great Destinations
March 4, 11, 18, 25
Professor Emeritus of Biology Floyd Sandford, a frequent world traveler and participant in Earthwatch Expeditions, will transport the Thursday Forum audience to some of the world's great destinations, including some of his personal favorites with an emphasis on culture and natural history. Earthwatch, the world's largest environmental volunteer organization, works to promote a sustainable world environment and the first three sessions will include a description of an Earthwatch Expedition. The final session will feature Sandford's original play about Charles Darwin.
Lecture One (Great Destination: Peru)
Attendees will travel much of the country, visiting the dry forest of the north, Arequipa and Lake Titicaca in the south, and then the Incacapital at Cusco and the sacred city of Machu Picchu. The lecture concludes with a trip to the Tambopata reserve in the Peruvian Amazon for an Earthwatch Expedition to study macaws, found there in numbers unrivaled anywhere else in the world.
Lecture Two (Great Destination: New Zealand and Australia)
After traveling around the North Island of New Zealand, including visits to some of its lush rain forests and the thermal park at Rotorua, attendees travel to the South Coast of Australia near Adelaide, then to lovely Kangaroo Island for an Earthwatch Expedition to study echidnas and gowannas.
Lecture Three (Great Destinations: Egypt and the British Isles)
This lecture begins by exploring the history and mystery of exotic Egypt. Then it's off to visit several different locales in Southern England, including hikes on sections of the Devon and Cornish Coast Paths. The lecture concludes in the Inner Hebrides of Scotland for an Earthwatch Expedition searching for basking sharks, the third largest fish in the sea.
Lecture Four (Destination: Down House, England in the year 1881)
The final session will involve travel back in time and a visit to Down House, the home of the famous English scientist Charles Darwin. Sandford will present a special staged performance of his one-man play "Darwin Remembers." The play, written in 2000, had its premiere performance at a Thursday Forum that year. Since then, Sandford has given over 25 performances at colleges, universities, churches, humanist societies and natural history museums throughout the United States.
Lynda Barrow
(Political Science)
"One of the students responded without hesitation, "I’d push you!" She then turned bright red. Six months later, we jumped."
