Story Published: Jun 12, 2009 at 6:15 PM PST
Story Updated: Jun 12, 2009 at 6:15 PM PST
Vandal country is relishing a rare opportunity to talk evolution with the best in the industry. It's Evolution 2009, and from grad students to experts, people are spending an extended weekend on UI campus.
"We're going to spend five or six days here packed full with a lot of individual presentations, people coming here talking about their findings over the course of the last year," said UI Biology Professor Olle Pellmyr.
Pellmyr was critical in bringing the conference to the Palouse. Pellmyr said they'll cover about 20 different evolutionary topics. And it's no small gathering, 1100 of the top minds from around the world are in town.
"We had some colleagues that came over and gave talks here, and they looked around and said 'We had no idea, you guys are a jewel in the rough. You have really critical mass here, and so we'd really like to see you do this. You can do it,' and we're figuring it's going to do good things for us as well in terms of education," said Pellmyr. "We can train our undergraduates and grad students better doing this."
As registration was underway in Moscow, K-12 teachers were in Pullman to discuss ways to teach the subject. Most of the presentations are restricted to those registered for the conference with the exception of the keynote speech by Eugenie Scott, who is the Executive Director of the National Center for Science Education. Scott is receiving the first ever Stephen Jay Gould Award for her work. That speech is Friday night from 8:00-9:30 at the Kibbie Dome.
