BY KAREN BOSSICK
Learn how we can apply lessons learned from space to the climate crisis when the daughter of Wernher von Braun speaks at Ketchum’s Community Library.
And join Sage School students for a debate and discussion on whether the four dams on the lower Snake River should be removed to aid in salmon recovery.
- The Sage School will present a mock debate about how best to manage the lower Snake River at 1 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 19, at the library.
Sage School’s eighth- and ninth-graders have spent the past trimester taking field trips to dams that have been the subject of much debate. And they’ve met with experts in the field as they’ve tried to figure out how best to take care of a threatened natural ecosystem and resource that is heavily utilized by humans.
Students will take on the roles of various stakeholders, including a salmon biologist, fly-fishing guide and employee at Lower Granite Dam, as they debate salmon recovery, recreation, barge traffic, ecosystem health and electricity connected with the river.
- Margrit von Braun will discuss her father’s legacy and the implications the Apollo mission moon exploration has for today at 6 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 21.
Von Braun is the daughter of Wernher von Braun, a German aerospace engineer who joined NASA in 1960 and was the chief architect of the Saturn V super heavy-lift launch vehicle that propelled the Apollo spacecraft to the moon.
She has been speaking to audiences across the country this year in honor of the 50th anniversary of the moon landing. And she is also teaching audiences how pollution and environmental health problems are connected to climate and how we can apply lessons from the Apollo mission to our current climate crisis.
Von Braun is an environmental engineer, working in the areas of hazardous waste management and risk assessment. She holds a degree from the University of Idaho, as well as the Georgia Institute of Technology and Washington State University.
She moved to Idaho in 1977 to work for the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality. She joined the faculty at the University of Idaho in 1980. There, she directed the Environmental Science and Environmental Engineering programs for 10 years and served as Dean of the College of Graduate Studies.