LUCERNE, Calif. – Visiting Marymount California University professor Dr. Allen Franz will be giving a guest lecture series at Marymount's Lakeside Campus in Lucerne.

The first lecture in the series, “Water, the Essential Molecule” will take place from 7 to 8 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 8. at the campus, 3700 Country Club Drive.

Dr. Franz, an environmental anthropologist, has been a Marymount faculty member for more than 30 years in Southern California, and has conducted multidisciplinary research in Latin America, Europe and Africa, as well as California and other Western states. 

In recent years he has been selected to lead a National Science Foundation program for college instructors on geology, climate and ecology of Yosemite and the Sierra Nevada, and as a collaborator in a National Endowment for the Humanities  Summer Field Institute on “Nature and History at the Nation's Edge: A Field Institute in Environmental and Borderlands History.”

We've all heard that water covers 70 percent of the Earth, and makes up 70 percent of our bodies. What is it about water that makes it so vital to life as we know it? 

This presentation will provide background on the basic physics, chemistry and astronomy of water—what's special about the water molecule, and how common is water in the Solar System and the wider cosmos? 

Here on Earth, what are the factors that shape where water goes and what it does?

Water in Lake County, and anywhere else on Earth, depends on these dynamics.

Contact Michelle Scully, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. , for more information or to reserve your spot for the lecture.