Darwin Day celebrated at UW-Whitewater
Released: January 27, 2003
Margo Wilson, a highly respected scientist from McMaster University in Ontario, Canada, will deliver the fifth annual Darwin Day lecture at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater. The event will take place Feb. 12 at 7:30 p.m. in the Hamilton Center, located in the University Center on campus.
A reception and unique activity will take place before the lecture at 6:45 p.m. Students are encouraged to bring in their favorite dessert shaped as their favorite plant or animal. The desserts are then cleverly laid out to form the world’s largest edible phylogenetic tree.
Darwin Day is a celebration of Darwin’s wide-ranging contributions. Each year the event features a speaker on a topic illustrating the applicability of Darwinian thinking to important societal issues. UW-Whitewater began celebrating Darwin Day in 1999, the 190th anniversary of Darwin’s birth.
Recognition of this annual event has seen recent growth worldwide. Locally, attendance for Darwin Day at UW-Whitewater is increasing each year. Students and faculty from high schools, universities and colleges have attended from places like Milwaukee, Madison and Beloit.
“No one had ever done anything like this before,” said Jeffrey McKinnon, a UW-Whitewater biology professor. “The university’s biology department was at the forefront of this event, building it from the ground floor. Now it has become a big deal throughout the world, all the way to Britain.”
For more information contact McKinnon at (262) 472-6200, mckinnoj@uww.edu
- Craig Coshun,npa@uww.edu
