The Real X Games – Coming to St. Michaels High School

Pamela Conrad, Ph.D

In its first collaboration with Talbot County Schools, Chesapeake Forum is pleased to present, The Real X Games: Life in the Most Extreme Environments on Earth, a TED TALK-style lecture from Pamela Conrad, Ph.D., LIVESTREAMED from the stage of St Michaels High School on November 17th. Dr. Conrad was Chesapeake Forum’s Distinguished Speaker last year, discussing her role in the Mars exploration.

Dr. Conrad is an astrobiologist and planetary scientist who specializes in how planets do or not evolve into habitable environments. To help her understand where life might exist elsewhere in the solar system, Dr. Conrad tries to understand the diversity of environments in which life can thrive. Exploring some of the most tenacious of Earth’s organisms and the “extreme” environments in which they live helps scientists understand what that might mean for finding life beyond Earth.

In The Real X Games, Dr. Conrad will look at some of the most severe environments in the world from deep within the earth to an arid desert to show that, incredibly, these environments, which are so hostile to humans, are home to a surprising range of organisms. It is in hostile environments that scientists like Dr. Conrad search for clues to understand how life develops in extreme cold, blistering heat, even radioactive conditions, and how life might also be able to develop in other seemingly unpopulated climates across the universe.

The Real X Games: Life in the Most Extreme Environments on Earth is a one (1) session course, Thurs., Nov. 17th from 9-10:30 AM. $15. To register for this, or any other Chesapeake Forum course, go to https://chesapeakeforum.org.

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