Darwin Education Initiative (2009)

Records relating to the Darwin Education Initiative, run as part of the Wellcome Trust's Darwin 200 celebrations in 2009. An evaluation of the initiative can be found in WT/D/6/5/1.

Records relating to the Darwin 200 public engagement strand can be found in WT/D/3/8 .

2008-2010

7 files

The Darwin Education Initiative was part of a programme of activities commissioned and supported by the Wellcome Trust in 2009 to celebrate the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin's birth and the 150th anniversary of the publication of On the Origin of the Species. Records relating to the Trust's wider Darwin 200 initiative can be found in WT/D/3/8 Darwin 200 initiative (2009).

The Trust allocated £3.3 million of funding to the education initiative, which sought to engage UK schools with Darwin, his ideas on evolution and natural selection and his influence on contemporary science and culture. The initiative centred on Darwin-inspired practical science kits, which were provided to every UK state primary school as well as secondary schools on request. Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew was commissioned to deliver the Great Plant Hunt for primary schools, providing treasure chests filled with free educational resources and activities mapped to the primary science curriculum. For secondary schools, a series of three experiement kits, entitled Survival Rivals, was produced by Philip Harris.