Darwin Day, taking place February 12, marks Charles Darwin’s 200th birthday and is a precursor to the 150th anniversary of the first publication of his book The Origin of Species in November 1859. During February, educators and scientists worldwide will celebrate the life and work of this English naturalist and geologist who played a major role in developing evolutionary theory.
During his five-year voyage to South America, Darwin noticed differences in mockingbirds he saw on various islands in then Galapagos. “Arguably, these birds had a greater influence than any other organism on the initial development of Darwin’s concept of natural selection,” contends Robert L. Curry, creator of the Darwin’s Mockingbirds website (http://oikos.villanova.edu/Nesomimus). Curry, a Villanova University biology professor, has conducted numerous studies of mockingbirds at locations worldwide, including the Galapagos Islands. “The mockingbirds were the first organisms that Darwin observed firsthand that led him to infer that divergence could take place between geographically proximate populations,” he explains. “The mockingbirds were sufficiently similar to each other (and to species he had seen in South America) for him to appreciate that each island’s single mockingbird species was descended from an immediate common ancestor…but also different enough to inspire Darwin to begin to consider the process through which divergence had occurred, and the forces that might drive that divergence.”
IHS and Darwin Day
Darwin Day is a program of the Institute for Humanist Studies (IHS), an international educational nonprofit in Albany, New York. You’ll find ideas for celebrating with your students at this IHS website: http://darwinday.org/englishL/assistevent/index.html. Locate events in your area at the main Darwin Day website, www.darwinday.org, which also contains an array of educational resources, including podcasts.
In addition, the IHS Continuum of Humanist Education is giving educators and others interested in Darwin’s work a chance to take a free online course—Evolution, Creationism, and the Nature of Science—at http://darwinday.org/learn/cohe.html. Using the contemporary example of the evolution-creationism controversy, the course was designed to inspire critical thinking about the nature and function of science as a method for understanding the world. Intelligent Design and other forms of creationism will be explained and rebutted, highlighting the characteristics of empirical versus anti-scientific and pseudoscientific thinking. Massimo Pigliucci, professor of ecology and evolution at the State University of New York-Stony Brook, created the course.
Other Darwin Resources
Access Excellence @ the National Health Museum, a bioscience and health cyber-education program, has more than 70 Darwin-related links and classroom activities. Search using the keyword “Darwin” at www.access-excellence.org.
Amateur science history scholar David Leff provides unique resources about Darwin’s life and times, including photographs of places where he lived and worked, at www.aboutdarwin.com.
Go to the NSTA Learning Center website at http://learningcenter.nsta.org, and search using the keyword “Darwin” to access journal articles, book excerpts, and books for all grade levels, K–college. The NSTA Learning Center also has resources for teaching about evolution, as does NSTA’s website at www.nsta.org/publications/evolution.aspx.