Academy Town Square
The Academy Town Square series is designed to engage and provide relevant educational content to the public on
environmental issues. Academy Town Squares focus on critical global issues in environmental science by featuring
prominent thought leaders and their findings on water, climate change, evolution and biodiversity and extinction.
Academy Town Square: A Transforming Earth: The Legacy of the Devonian Period
Thursday, September 26
6–7:30 p.m.
Life Onto Land, Show and Tell at Science Live
6 p.m.
Want to get in touch with your inner fish? Discover the connection between humans and our scaly ancestors through an exploration of Tiktaalik roseae. Learn about this fossil’s enormous impact on our scientific understanding of how our arms came to be.
Panel Discussion
6:30–7:30 p.m.
In conjunction with the landmark exhibition Life Onto Land: The Devonian, the Academy presents a panel discussion with Academy scientist Ted Daeschler, paleoecologist Diana Boyer and paleobotanist Jonathan Wilson, moderated by Academy scientist Jason Downs.
In this in-depth Academy Town Square conversation, you’ll hear about the Devonian, a transformational period hundreds of millions of years before the age of the dinosaur — when Earth’s forests first began to appear and first limbed animals emerged. Learn about this fascinating time from Academy scientist Ted Daeschler, paleoecologist Diana Boyer and paleobotanist Jonathan Wilson, whose research contributes to our shared understanding of evolution and Earth's history.
In a lively discussion, moderated by Academy scientist Jason Downs, the scientists will unpack how Devonian Period evolutionary transitions, and the extinctions that ended it, shaped the entire world in fundamental ways that continue to be reflected in the natural world today. During this pivotal period in life's history, vertebrates acquire limbs and moved into shallow waters. Arthropods started exploring terrestrial spaces. Plants evolved from simple, low-lying forms into massive trees, shaping the first forests. Reef-building organisms experienced great diversification. Then two major extinction events occurred that not only marked the end of the Devonian, but also collapsed the massive reef systems and eliminated many of the aquatic vertebrates that once dominated the seas and rivers — leaving behind groups that dominate those spaces today.
Join us for a deep dive into Earth’s remarkable history on Thursday, September 26, timed with the closing weekend of our exhibition Life Onto Land: The Devonian, which is on view through Sunday, September 29.
Bios
Diana Boyer grew up in central PA and earned degrees from the University of Delaware and the University of California Riverside (PhD). She loves doing field work to gather clues to understand ancient marine communities and teaching at Winthrop University in South Carolina. Most recently, her research has focused on understanding the causes and consequences of the Late Devonian mass extinctions, which to this day remain an unsolved mystery. She hopes that with assistance from colleagues from around the world, and more field work, she can help piece together what caused one of the biggest extinctions on this planet.
Ted Daeschler is a world-renown scientist and the now retired curator of vertebrate paleontology at the Academy of Natural Sciences. He earned his PhD from the University of Pennsylvania and has been at the Academy since 1987. His research has focused on collecting and describing Late Devonian fossil vertebrates from Pennsylvania and the Canadian Arctic including numerous sarcopterygian fishes along the lineage leading to the earliest limbed animals. Daeschler directed the organization of the Vertebrate Paleontology Collection at the Academy with an eye toward the long-term conservation of this important historical and scientific resource.
Jonathan Wilson is professor of environmental studies at Haverford College and a paleobotanist. His research is focused on the evolution of terrestrial plants and understanding plant-environmental interactions in Earth’s history, and he applies mathematical and experimental techniques to fossilized and living plants. He received his undergraduate degree in computer science and earth and planetary science from Johns Hopkins University, completed his PhD at Harvard University in earth and planetary sciences, and was a postdoctoral researcher at Caltech before arriving at Haverford. His field work and teaching has taken him around the world, from Colorado to Trinidad and Tobago to China.
[Moderator] Jason Downs received degrees in biology and geology from the University of Pennsylvania. He earned a PhD in geology and geophysics from Yale University, with a paleontological dissertation that addressed the condition of the vertebrate skeleton at the origin of the jaws. After a research post-doctoral position at the Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University and a visiting professorship at Swarthmore College, Downs is now associate professor of biology at Delaware Valley University, research associate at the Academy, and is on the teaching faculty at the Wagner Free Institute of Science. His current research focuses on the anatomical and ecological contexts of the vertebrate transition to land.
Academy Town Square: Planting for the Future
Thursday, October 3
6–7:30 p.m.
In neighborhoods across Philadelphia, communities from the Philippines, Burma, Puerto Rico, Vietnam and the African Diaspora steward gardens and farms filled with ancestral plants, where cultural heritage and community science converge. Join us for the next Academy Town Square where Maiken Scott, host of WHYY’s The Pulse, speaks with seedkeepers, farmers and botanists who share how preserving ethnobotanical histories and practices help to advance science and expand our understanding of the natural world — and ourselves. This conversation is in conjunction with Heirloom Plants: Ancestral Seeds in Philadelphia, an exhibition in our Spotlight Gallery on view through February 17, 2025.
In this conversation, you’ll hear from Chris Bolden Newsome, farm manager at Sankofa Community Farm at Bartram’s Garden, where farming practices form intergenerational connections to the African Diaspora. Iris Brown shares how plants at Villa Africana Colobó are grown for cooking demonstrations aimed at telling the stories of traditions and cultural practices connected to the African heritage of Puerto Rico. Owen Taylor, owner of Truelove Seeds, discusses how seedkeeping is a form of cultural preservation, food sovereignty and sustainable agriculture. And Chelsea Smith, manager of the Botany Collection at the Academy of Natural Science of Drexel University, shares how over a million historical and modern dried plant specimens are used for research and cultural preservation.
Learn how community members, farmers, seedkeepers and scientists are working together to preserve the plant world that we all rely on and how we can all connect to our ancestral foods.
Schedule of Events
6 p.m. At Science Live, Iris Brown (Villa Africana Colobó) will be sharing the significance of gandules (pigeon peas) and have samples available of the dish, Arroz con Gandules (rice and pigeon peas)
6:30 – 7:30 p.m. Maiken Scott in conversation with Iris Brown (Villa Africana Colobó), Chris Newsome (Sankofa Community Farm at Bartram’s Garden), Chelsea Smith (Academy of Natural Sciences), and Owen Taylor (Truelove Seeds)
This program will be recorded and available on this page if are you unable to attend in person.
Past Academy Town Squares
Academy Town Square: Reading the Rocks: How Geology Tells the Earth’s Story
Our planet is so old, it’s hard to wrap your head around – let alone fathom how short our lifespans on earth are – when compared with just about anything in the realm of geology. Join us for the WHYY & Academy Town Square where Maiken Scott explores with geologist and author Marcia Bjornerud how thinking like a geologist can have immeasurable impacts beyond our time.
Academy Town Square: Long Live Sturgeon! (And Other Amazing Fish of the Delaware River Basin)
Academy Town Square that originally took place February 15, 2024. A conversation hosted by WHYY’s Maiken Scott on the Atlantic Sturgeon, a fish that “epitomizes the global biodiversity crisis,” as well as other vulnerable fishes in the mid-Atlantic region. Panelists include Mariangeles Arce H. of the Academy, David Keller of the Academy, Eric J. Hilton of the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, and Dewayne Fox of Delaware State University.
Academy Town Square: Grasslands: Restoring Bird Habitat
Maiken Scott, host of WHYY's The Pulse, and bird conservationist Zoe Warner discuss a 10-year study conducted in Chester County that has led to greater insights into bird habitat needs and a visionary plan to protect them.
Academy Town Square: Lights Out Philly
During the fall 2020 migration season, a perfect storm of events led to the tragic deaths of thousands of birds from window strikes. This sorrowful occurrence galvanized a volunteer group called Bird Safe Philly, which is determined to prevent something similar from happening again.
Through their Lights Out Philly campaign, the group was able to convince many of the city’s building owners to turn out their lights at night during the spring and fall migration periods.
Join us for a conversation hosted by Sophia Schmidt, environmental reporter for WHYY, to better understand the challenges that birds face in urban environments and the ways that we can better protect them.
Academy Town Square Presents: Flooding in Philadelphia's Eastwick Community
In this special Academy Town Square, residents of Eastwick will share their challenges as well as their determined spirit — describing the history of a remarkable community organizing effort and raising awareness of what we can do to support it.
Academy Town Square Presents: More Livable Communities in an Era of Climate Change
As we adapt to our changing climate, unexpected benefits may follow — especially for marginalized communities. Efforts to reduce heating and flooding bring more green spaces that are known to strengthen mental health and improve communities.
Emergency preparedness efforts create more accessible areas for older and disabled members of the community. Join us to explore how these solutions to climate change provide an opportunity for equity to marginalized Black and Latino communities.
Views and opinions expressed by the speakers are solely their own and do not necessarily represent any associated institutions.
Academy Town Square Presents: Preparing for a Warmer, Wetter Philadelphia
Climate change is causing Philadelphia not only to heat up, but also to experience more frequent and intense flooding
events.
In this program we’ll explore how local communities are dealing with increasing temperatures
exacerbated by the urban heat island effect; natural cycles of flooding; and how urbanization and climate change
impact flooding risks in our city. But where there are challenges, there are people ready to step up and face them.
Find out how, from community groups to city government, Philadelphians are making efforts to understand and mitigate
the effects of a warmer, wetter Philadelphia.
Academy Town Square Presents: Gideon Mendel Drowning World
Gideon Mendel joined us for an Academy Town Square on May 6 to discuss his engagement with social issues as a
photographer and artist, including the challenge of making climate change visible.
Academy Town Square Presents: Voting for the Environment
“Voting for the Environment,” a free program in the Academy Town Square series, features a roundtable discussion with leaders of the League of Conservation Voters, Clean Air Council, and other key environmental and advocacy organizations.
Learn about the important issues that affect the local and global environment and how the upcoming election will influence them. Join us for this interactive discussion that will help you become a better citizen.