Come for a discussion of current Massachusetts bicycle law - what works, what doesn't, how to be courteous and safe, and how we can all get along better on the road.

Regular expressions are a tool common to many programming languages and text editors, allowing you to search for complex patterns in text. Come learn about all the surprisingly complex (or otherwise time-consuming) problems they can solve for you, as well as their limitations.

Come learn about some concepts from linguistics (phonetics, phonology, syntax, and semantics) and use them to create a new (and Very Exciting!) language which we will develop during the class. (note: don't expect to be able to write a novel in our language after the class is over - this class tends to focus on more abstract properties of language, though we will create a small lexicon)

This class will consist of a rapid pass through various areas of linguistics in pursuit of a language of Our Very Own. Note that this class focuses more on the underlying structure of language than on generating vocabulary - don't expect to come out of the class being able to write a novel in the language we create.

Come learn to grow orchids! This is a beginner class but we will go into some non-beginner topics as much as time permits (one likely topic is semi-hydroponics and stick mounting). You'll get ranted at about pretty flowers for a while, then practice potting a baby phalaenopsis, which you will take home at the end of the class.

Do you kill your houseplants and can't figure out why? Come to this class to learn the basics of houseplant care... and take home a small (and hard to kill) plant to get a fresh start in plant husbandry!

Come learn how to program in Ruby!

Think orchids are beautiful but difficult to grow? Come to this class to learn how to grow them!

We'll construct the phonology, syntax, and lexicon of our own language... all in 50 minutes.

Learn how to grow orchids of various genera and bits of orchid jargon. I will answer the questions of what to do when your orchid begins to look sickly, how to get orchids to rebloom, what it means when an orchid starts growing leaves in places you don't expect, and more. This will be partially a hands-on class; you will get a young phalaenopsis which may bloom in a year or two and we will experiment with different potting materials.

The International Phonetic Alphabet is a system of phonetic transcription that provides a relatively unambiguous way to notate speech. Extremely useful if you like learning foreign languages or are at all interested in linguistics. This is a class for beginners - we will make various strange sounds at each other, match those sounds to symbols, and hopefully have a bit of fun! Time permitting we may play a little with Praat, a program which lets you make neat spectrograms of speech.

This course provides an introduction to the music of Dmitri Shostakovich by considering the connections among some of his work.

This class strengthens students' understanding of functions and sets using the functional programming language Haskell.

Introduces students to a few of the ideas of elementary number theory by considering two elegant proofs.

Ever wanted to whip out a graph of $$y = \frac{x^2+1}{x \sin x}$$ but just didn't know where to begin? Have nightmares about being stuck on a desert island without your graphing calculator and being unable to graph $$y = \sin x \ln x$$ rapidly? Even if the answer to both of these questions is "um, no", being able to draw reasonably accurate graphs of complicated functions without making a table of values or grabbing your calculator can be fun and useful.

An introduction to some of the general ideas and techniques of birdwatching; also provides instruction on the identification of various common Massachusetts birds.

Ruby is a programming language increasingly used for the web. This class will teach some of its basic principles. The ...