Year of Darwin & Evolution
In 2007 an ad hoc group of Case faculty began developing plans for a Case-wide celebration of Darwin and evolution to begin in 2008 and extend into 2009.
Year of Darwin home page
Year of Darwin featuring a photo of a flightless Cormorant
I took in the Galapagos.
Year of Darwin and evolution site goal
The Year of Darwin site was developed to:
- Spread the word to the campus community in order to solicit input and event proposals.
- Promote and publicize Year of Darwin events throughout the year.
- Provide an ongoing educational resource of information related to Darwin and evolution.
Project Overview
Meetings about the Year of Darwin site began over a year before the first planned event. Our strategy was to first launch a site that would draw in Year of Darwin project proposals via an online event submission form, and then begin promoting events as details became available.
Working with a faculty representative we came up with a site outline, and I was given preliminary content about the project, it's background and links to Darwin related stories in the news. I added to this by researching sites on Darwin, evolution and other Darwin celebrations so that I could include these in our resources and events sections. The site was then launched in early 2008 well before the first scheduled event.
Beginning with the David Quammen's August 28, 2008 lecture, The Reluctant Mr. Darwin, events were video-taped and uploaded to Case Western Reserve's YouTube channel. This allowed us to draw traffic from users searching on YouTube and made it easy for me to develop a video section for the site to add to our educational materials.
These videos along with our other resources will continue to provide information to site visitors well after the Year of Darwin celebration has concluded.
