Evolution in Kansas

An installation of the “Explore Evolution” exhibit will open on Nov. 1 in the Museum of Natural History at the University of Kansas. This is an NSF funded exhibit, with six installations around the country. (My OSLEP class at OU visited the one at the Sam Noble Museum there — I was able to point out a mislabeled dolphin photo: they showed a dusky, but called it a bottlenose.)

The exhibit has a nice balance of scales, with evolution considered, on the small side, in diatoms, and, on the large side, in whales. In between, there are displays about Darwin’s finches in the Galapagos Islands (and the work of Rosemary and Peter Grant there) and the relationship between humans and chimpanzees. This last includes a wall display based upon DNA sequence comparisons.

It’s at least one place that the Kansas Board of Education can’t mess up.