| Overview: |
This BBC Education site contains a wide variety of material and, while it is not intended as a lecture, contains a great deal of educationally relevant material. It is an excellent resource for students and instructors seeking in depth information on Darwin and evolution. The site has seven distinct sections, each of which may be applicable depending on the instructor’s objectives.
- The Origin Online: This section has the entire text of The Origin of Species with an illustrated guide and a good annotated bibliography with active links to other sites. The Origin of Species is available chapter by chapter online or may be downloaded in its entirety.
- Darwin: The Man and His Legacy: This section contains a biography of Charles Darwin, a History of Darwinism, A Christian Response To Darwinian Theories of Evolution, Darwin and Darwinism (a discussion of Darwin’s theories, how they arose, and impacts of later findings by Richard Dawkins), and Darwin, Genes, and Determinism (a critique of “fundamentalist”
Darwinism.)
- Alife: This is an artificial life game that demonstrates survival
and extinction in a population. It is a Java program with instructions and
ability to design new organisms. The section also includes links to other
artificial life and artificial intelligence (AI) sites.
- Transcripts of the Life On Earth television series: Complete transcripts
are available; probably not very useful for educational purposes.
- The Extinction Files: This section is a series of short articles
on mass extinction,
theories of extinction, patterns in extinction events,
biodiversity today, and links to other sites on extinction.
- Fossil Roadshow: This section contains a series of articles on fossils
and fossil collecting. The article on amber is particularly good.
- Natural Selections: This section is a set of RealVideo files that
are interviews with naturalists and biologists about evolution and what organisms
particularly interest them and why. Included are such persons as Douglas Adams,
Jane Goodall, Richard Dawkins, and David Attenborough.
Instructors will need to review each section and determine what part(s) are
most applicable to their course. The site contains a wealth of information for
instructors and students. High school students and undergraduates doing research
on Darwin and the beginnings of our modern understanding of evolution will be
able to mine a great deal of information from this site. |
