Education at the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center
I just returned from a two-day meeting in Durham NC at the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center, a research center that opened in December 2004 with NSF funding. I was joined there by various AIBS Board members, AIBS staff members, and NESCent's Evolution Education Working Group, which has a membership of about two dozen of the top evolution educators in the country. We met with NESCent leaders and the staff of its Education and Outreach division.
AIBS has a sub-contract with NESCent to help it coordinate education and outreach activities with its research mission, including staffing and co-sponsorship of an evolution symposium each fall at the annual meeting of the National Association of Biology Teachers. We published a BioScience interview with NESCent's Director, Kathleen Smith, in June 2006. The Evolution Education Working Group made great progress at its meeting this week, which was its first meeting, and has identified at least one sub-topic to work on moving forward: effective pedagogy for evolution. Contact: NESCent Education and Outreach Program Manager Kristin Jenkins, kjenkins@nescent.org