Provided

J.P. Sniadecki premieres his new film, "The Iron Ministry," April 8 at Cornell Cinema, a documentary filmed over three years and thousands of miles exploring China's massive railway system.

Saving seabirds

Project Puffin founder Stephen W. Kress gives a talk on his autographical new book, “Project Puffin: The Improbable Quest to Bring a Beloved Seabird Back to Egg Rock,” April 6 at 7:30 p.m. at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, 159 Sapsucker Woods Road, Ithaca. Part of the Monday Night Seminar series; free and open to the public.

Kress is director of the Audubon Seabird Restoration Program. He will recount what inspired his lifelong passion for puffins on the Maine coast, the founding of Project Puffin 42 years ago to help endangered seabirds worldwide, and the challenges of working on remote islands. His presentation will be followed by a book signing.

Information: 800-843-2473, cornellbirds@cornell.edu

China by train

Filmmaker and assistant professor of performing and media arts J.P. Sniadecki explores China and its massive railway system in his new experimental documentary, “The Iron Ministry,” premiering April 8 at 7 p.m. in Willard Straight Theatre. Presented by Cornell Cinema. In Mandarin, subtitled in English.

Filmed over three years and scores of journeys on what will soon be the world’s largest railroad, Sniadecki’s work condenses those travels into one journey, and captures the thrills and anxieties of social and technological transformation in 21st-century China.

Sniadecki leads a post-screening discussion facilitated by Andrew Utterson of the Roy H. Park School of Communications at Ithaca College. Utterson is a regional visiting fellow in the Cornell Institute for European Studies.

Civic ecology

Communities around the world are coming together to rebuild and restore local environments that have been affected by crisis or disaster, with people working together to restore nature, renew communities and heal themselves.

Professor of natural resources Marianne Krasny, director of Cornell's Civic Ecology Lab, discusses this emerging movement of grassroots environmental stewardship in a Chats in the Stacks book talk, April 9 at 4 p.m. in Mann Library’s Stern Seminar Room. Free and open to the public.

Krasny’s new book, “Civic Ecology: Adaptation and Transformation from the Ground Up” (MIT Press), features stories of renewal efforts including those in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, in New York City after Hurricane Sandy and in Soweto after apartheid, and offers a framework to understand the growing international phenomenon.

Research by Krasny and coauthor Keith Tidball, extension associate in the Department of Natural Resources, investigates how people, practices and communities interact to produce successful outcomes. The book was used in the Cornell MOOC Civic Ecology: Reclaiming Broken Places.

Books will be available for purchase and signing, and refreshments served. For information, call 607-255-5406.

Math awareness

David Ross, professor of applied and computational mathematics at Rochester Institute of Technology, will give a public lecture April 10 at 4:30 p.m. in 251 Malott Hall. The event is free. His talk is part of this year’s Mathematics Awareness Month celebration hosted by the Department of Mathematics.

Held each year in April, Mathematics Awareness Month is meant to increase public understanding of and appreciation for mathematics. This year’s awareness month theme is “Math Drives Careers.”

Spring Fever

For more than 40 years, Cayuga’s Waiters have sung for fans at their annual spring show, which they proudly consider “the greatest tradition at Cornell.”

The a cappella group continues the tradition with Spring Fever XLI, April 10 at 8 p.m. in Bailey Hall. Tickets are $10 general admission, available from members of Cayuga’s Waiters and online at baileytickets.com.

The spring show has sold out for 35 consecutive years. This year may be no different, with an evening being billed as “more than just a concert.” The show is, according to a press release, “an exposé of human might and endurance that overwhelms the faint of heart and leaves the powerful in awe.”

Vet open house

Learn how to milk a cow, examine a dog or become a veterinarian at the College of Veterinary Medicine’s 2015 Open House, Saturday, April 11, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. The event is free.

Hosted by students, faculty and staff in the college, the family-friendly event offers opportunities to meet and learn about a variety of animals and their care, facilities and equipment at the college, and careers as vets, veterinary technicians and animal care specialists.

The 49th annual open house features tours of the Animal Health Diagnostic Center and the new Teaching Dairy Barn; exhibits of exotic pets and wildlife; all-day demonstrations including canine agility, animal pathology and gross anatomy, students performing an ultrasound on a dog, an equine treadmill and a farrier fabricating horseshoes; lectures; a petting zoo with baby farm animals, and a Teddy Bear ER – bring your own wounded stuffed animals in need of treatment.

Admissions and career presentations and student panels will be held at 11 a.m. and 3 p.m. in James Law Auditorium; as will virtual hospital tours at 10:15 a.m., 12:15 and 2:15 p.m.

Yiddish classic

The Jewish Studies Program presents the classic Yiddish film “Our Children (Unzere Kinder),” April 13 at 7 p.m. at Cornell Cinema. Free and open to the public. The screening in Willard Straight Theatre commemorates Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Made in Poland in 1948, the film mixes noir, pastiche and cinéma vérité. Directed by Nathan Gross and Shaul Goskind, it stars the comic duo Dzigan and Shumacher.

“Our Children” is among the first films about the Holocaust and the last Yiddish feature film shot in Poland. It was filmed on location at the Helenowek Colony, an orphanage and school near Lodz, with a cast of child survivors of the Holocaust in residence there.