5 Things You Need to Know Today, 3/30

1) Today will be sunny, with a high near 48. Tonight we'll have a chance of showers, mainly after midnight. There will be increasing clouds, with a low around 37.

2) The is pleased to announce a series of workshops focusing on specific areas of needs encountered by students of art. Each workshop will include a demonstration as well as time to paint. This morning from 9am-noon will be "the Bib “P” Perspective with Robert Mesrop." Explore this challenging aspect of drawing and painting. For more information and to register, visit falmouthart.org or call 508-540-3304.

3) Tonight at 6:30pm, the will host historian Harlow Giles Unger for a lecture on the Boston Tea Party. On December 16, 1773, an estimated seven dozen men, many dressed as Indians, dumped roughly £10,000 worth of tea in Boston Harbor. Whatever their motives at the time, they unleashed a social, political, and economic firestorm that would culminate in the Declaration of Independence two and a half years later. The cost is $4 for Historical Society members; $5 for non-members.  

4) Tonight at 7pm,  will host a 300 Committee lecture titled "The Honeybee Democracy" by Dr. Thomas D. Seeley, professor of Neurobiology and Behavior at Cornell University. In recognition of his scientific work, Seeley has received the Senior Scientist Prize of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, been awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship, and been elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. His talk will examine swarm intelligence in a natural system that has evolved this ability—a swarm of honey bees solving the life-ordeath problem of finding a new home. Using a process that includes collective fact-finding, open sharing of information, vigorous debating, and fair voting by the hundreds of bees in a swarm that function as nest-site scouts, honey bees accomplish amazing things. Seeley will show how these incredible insects have much to teach us when it comes to achieving collective wisdom and effective group decision making.

5) There's a Teen Swing Dance tonight at 7pm at the . Instructor Ellen Brodsky will start off this fun evening in the spacious recital hall with a warm-up lesson period from 7-8pm, followed by an open dance from 8-9pm. The night gets hopping to the music of CJazz, a Cape Cod Conservatory of Music & Arts teen performance group. The cost is $10 per person at the door.