Darwin Now is the British Council’s contribution to the international celebration of the bicentenary of Charles Darwin’s birth and 150 years since the publication of his ground-breaking work ‘On the Origin of Species’.
From November 2009 – May 2010 the British Council in Malta, in collaboration with the Directorate, Quality and Standards in Education, Curriculum Management and eLearning Department at the Ministry for Education, Culture, Youth and Sport, is holding an exhibition of the life and work of Charles Darwin in ten schools in Malta and Gozo.
The participating schools are:
St Benedict College, Kirkop
Gozo College, Rabat
Maria Regina College, Mosta
St Ignatius College, Handaq
St Margaret College, Cospicua
St Theresa College, Mriehel
Convent of the Sacred Heart School, St Julian's
Our Lady Immaculate School, Hamrun
St Albert the Great College, Valletta
St Edward's College, Cottonera
Darwin Now exhibition also visited the annual NSTF Science Week between the 11th and 17th April 2010.
Darwin Now
In celebration of Darwin’s remarkable legacy in the 21st century, our Darwin Now project brings together an exciting series of global events and initiatives. It provides an international element to Darwin200, a national celebration of Darwin’s 200th birthday led by the Natural History Museum, UK.
Darwin Now will look at the impact of Darwin’s ideas on contemporary biology and evolutionary theory. It will explore the fundamental, influential and sometimes controversial nature of Darwin’s legacy and its relevance in the world today.
The exhibition
The Darwin Now exhibition explores Darwin’s life, his ground-breaking theory, and how his ideas are still relevant today. The exhibition sheds light on contemporary reactions to Darwin’s theories of evolution and how advances in fields as diverse as geology and economics influenced his thinking.
It is designed to explore the importance of the theory of evolution to the contemporary world and modern science, and highlights the work of several UK-based researchers who are pushing back the boundaries of evolutionary science.
Associated educational resources, including instructions for hands-on experiments, arts-based activities and suggestions for role plays and philosophical debates are available for students to download.
The exhibition is being shown in over 25 countries worldwide throughout 2009, in celebration of the 200th anniversary of Darwin’s birth (on 12th February) and the 150th anniversary of the publication of ‘On the Origin of Species’ (on 24th November).
If you can’t manage to visit the exhibition in person, have a look at the online version or download the exhibition booklet.
Darwin’s legacy
Charles Darwin is one of the world’s greatest scientists ever; the father of evolutionary theory. His breakthrough ideas about evolution have changed our understanding of the natural world and our place within it.
2009 marks the bicentenary of Darwin’s birth and 150 years since the publication of his book On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, which first described biological evolution through natural selection.
Darwin’s insight was that species adapt to their environments over time and that humans are, therefore, descended from earlier species. Today, the teaching of modern biology and many aspects of contemporary medicine are founded upon his theory of evolution, but his ideas have also had a wide-reaching influence on a range of other academics, including historians, theologians, novelists, psychologists, philosophers and sociologists. Indeed, many of the questions he raised a century and a half ago are just as likely to be discussed and debated today as they were then.
Communicating Darwin's Ideas: Richness and Opportunity: Seminar in York
In October 2009 Ms Desiree Scicluna Bugeja, Education Officer for Biology at the Directorate for Quality and Standards in Education, attended a five-day seminar in York.
The seminar was organised in collaboration with the National Science Learning Centre and the Natural History Museum, with the support of the Wellcome Trust. The focus of the seminar was sharing expertise in public engagement with evolution science, particularly among young people. It examined policy issues relating to public engagement with evolution and Darwinism and addressed four major themes:
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