February 12 marks the 205th birthday of Charles Darwin. Students at UT will celebrate his life and breakthrough discoveries in evolutionary biology with “Darwin Day” February 10-12.
The three-day event includes provocative brownbag lectures, a film series, a book cover design contest, daily information booth with giveaways, an informative teachers’ workshop, and an art exhibit at UT’s McClung Museum of Natural History and Culture. All of the events are free and open to the public.
The information booth will be open 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. on February 10-12 on the Pedestrian Walkway. Parking is available for a fee in the Volunteer Hall parking garage, located at the corner of 16th Street and Clinch Avenue, and at 1545 White Avenue.
The goal of Darwin Day is to promote the understanding of evolution and its importance as a unifying concept in biology.
Andrew Berry, a lecturer of organismic and evolutionary biology at Harvard University, will give the keynote address at 7:00 p.m. on February 11 at the University Center auditorium. He will address the other discoverer of natural selection, Alfred Russel Wallace.
In addition, Berry will deliver a lunch talk on Darwin’s relationship with indigenous peoples on February 11, and UT researcher Nick Matzke will give a lunch talk on February 12 about his experiences with a landmark trial on evolution education in schools.
Darwin Day is sponsored by the Central Program Council; 90.3 The Rock WUTK; the National Institute for Mathematical and Biological Synthesis; the Departments of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Anthropology, Plant Sciences, Microbiology, History, Psychology, Mathematics, Earth and Planetary Sciences, Theater, Sociology, Geography, Biosystems Engineering and Soil Science, and Entomology; and the College of Agricultural Sciences.
For more information, including a complete schedule of events, visit the event’s website.
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C O N T A C T :
Quentin Read (919-323-0071, qread@utk.edu)
Whitney Heins (865-974-5460, wheins@utk.edu)