Darwin Now exhibition launched

Darwin Now, a worldwide exhibition of the life and work of Charles Darwin, was launched in Malta on November 6 at St Benedict College Boys Secondary School in Kirkop. The exhibition will tour another nine schools in Malta and Gozo until May 2010. An online version of the exhibition is available at http://darwin.britishcouncil.org/exhibition .

The same exhibition is also taking place in about 50 countries worldwide, to celebrate the 200th anniversary of Darwin's birth and the 150th anniversary of his famous publication On the Origin of Species.

An initiative of the British Council's international programme, the exhibition is designed to explore the importance of the theory of evolution to the contemporary world and modern science, and the current work of UK researchers. It is accompanied by educational resources, including instructions for hands-on experiments, arts-based activities and suggestions for role plays and philosophical debates.

In 1835, Darwin visited the Galapagos islands for five weeks as part of his global voyage on board HMS Beagle. He found that a remarkable population of plants, birds and reptiles that had developed on almost identical islands in isolation from the mainland often had different characteristics which he could only explain by a gradual transformation of the various species.

Soon after his return to England in 1836, he arrived at the principle of 'natural selection' as a mechanism for the creation of new species, but he kept his ideas strictly to himself for the next 20 years until he published them in his famous book.

For further information on the exhibition, call Ingrid Eomois, British Council programmes officer on 2122 6378 or e-mail: ingrid.eomois@britishcouncil.org.