Wellcome News 58 editorial

Throughout 2009, events, exhibitions, and radio and TV programmes are celebrating the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin, and the 150th anniversary of the publication of his great scientific work ‘On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection’.

Recognising the importance of Darwin’s life and work, the Wellcome Trust has previously played a part in preserving his history. In 1996, a donation from the Trust helped English Heritage to acquire Down House, Darwin’s home for 40 years. We are a part-funder of the Darwin Correspondence Project, which is digitising and putting online the text of 14 500 or so of his letters. And Darwin’s walking stick formed part of Henry Wellcome’s collection; it can be seen in the Medicine Man exhibition at Wellcome Collection.

But for the Trust’s celebrations of Darwin in 2009, which form part of the UK’s Darwin200 activities, we didn’t just want to look to the past - but to ask in addition ‘how can we bring Darwin into the 21st century?’

Our most ambitious and exciting project is to deliver a free, Darwin-inspired experiment to every schoolchild in the country. For primary schools, we invited the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, to develop a science project, and they have created The Great Plant Hunt. Around 21 000 primary schools will receive a box - modelled on a travel chest as if from the Beagle voyage itself - containing a suite of activities for each year group, such as walks and seed banks.

For secondary schools, the Survival Rivals project provides kits allowing each year group to perform real experiments and learn about the scientific method. These include ‘I’m a Worm Get Me Out of Here’, which demonstrates the scientific principle of natural selection through predator-prey relationships, ‘Brine Date’, which looks at sexual selection, and ‘The X-Bacteria’, which engages pupils in the very topical issue of antibiotic resistance.

We have also funded a beautiful, animated ‘fly-through’ of the Tree of Life, aired as part of David Attenborough’s recent BBC Darwin documentary. On the internet, the animation becomes a fully interactive application ( www.wellcometreeoflife.org) that allows the user to explore in 3D the common ancestors of up to 400 species. Furthermore, the entire application is freely customisable, allowing users to add their own data and modify the animation for school lessons or scientific presentations.

Among our other web-based activities is Routes, a new website with eight online programmes following Katherine Ryan, a comedian, who is learning about her own genes after having had cancer twice and developing lupus. The site is designed to engage young audiences in contemporary scientific issues.

It’s not often that the science community gets to celebrate the life and work of one of its luminaries in such depth, and so it’s an exciting year. With The Great Plant Hunt and Survival Rivals, we are delighted to be working with schools to provide opportunities for children to learn about evolution and natural selection through practical experimentation. The Tree of Life animation and Routes website help to show how modern technology can be used to interpret Darwin’s ideas in different ways. We hope that these activities - together with the rest of the UK’s Darwin200 activities - help to enthuse the next generation about science.

Mark Walport
Director of the Wellcome Trust