Well here it is, almost November.  In my ‘neck-of-the-woods’  (by the way, where did that expression come from?)  Fall is waning, the winds are blowing and the snows of Colorado are threatening.  But this year the month of November brings some special meaning to me  (and to most biologists.)  It is the month in which we celebrate the 150th anniversary of the publication of Darwin’s On the Origin Of Species.  So much has been written and broadcast this year about Darwin and On The  Origin Of Species and evolution itself that maybe the topic has saturated our heads and our classrooms, I hope not!   In Northern Ohio we recently had a “birthday party” for the ‘Origin’ publication.  The Cleveland Regional Association of Biologist (CRABs) hosted a birthday party with a great cake and party favors and even a one hour talk about Darwin –the Man and His Science (of course the one hour talk lasted a bit more than 90 minutes, but that is typical of the speaker.)  As a take-home present for all that attended I created an interactive Origin Calendar.  It started on October 24th and had one activity for each day until November 24th (the official day of publication of On the Origin Of Species — November 24, 1859.)  (Actually the book was shown and sold out –1250 copies–on November 22, 1859.)  The Calendar can be used by anyone that travels to the CRABs web site at  http://crabs-biology.wikispaces.com/Origins+Calendar.  The activities come from all over the Web.  ENSI/SENSI, PBS Evolution Site, Evolution.Berkely.Edu, etc……  The calendar on the site is interactive and clicking on a day will take you to a web activity.  You can also download an interactive PDF file of it from this site.

Here it is:

CRABs 'Origin" Calendar

Use it well and use it often.