Cafe Sci Orlando announcements for 2009-02: Evolution in School
Chad MILLER
* February 4 event
+ Topic & speaker #
+ Directions and Parking Instructions
* About us
* Help us thrive
* Darwin Day is Feb 12 #
(# = change since last announcement)
February café: Evolution in School
For the month of February, we have a cafe meeting on Wednesday,
February 4th, at 7pm.
In the year 2009, we intend to follow monthly themes suggested by the
Coalition on Public Understanding of Science, which makes February
"Evolution", as celebration of the 200th anniversary of Charles
Darwin's birth (the 12th), and 150 years since On the Origin of Species
was published.
Evolution is the unifying theory of biological sciences, and without it
very little of biology makes sense. It remains one of the most
respected theories in science, and yet in the general population [1]in
the United States, about the same percentage "believe in evolution" as
"believe in ghosts". In a poll spanning 34 countries, [2]only Turkey
ranked lower than the US in acceptance of evolution.
Our presenter, Kathy Savage, is a high-school science teacher in Oveido
and board member of [3]Florida Citizens for Science. She will tell us
of her struggles, both in teaching students who are already inculcated
to distrust science and particularly evolution, and in helping to
protect Florida's new science education standards from being poisoned
with nonscientific ideas.
Directions
Our cafe is held at Stardust Video and Coffee, which is in the area
north of Colonial (SR50) and east of Mills Ave (17/92), but south of
Winter Park.
* From Mills, drive east on Virginia Dr, past Leu Gardens, following
the curves -- Virginia, Forest, Corrine. At a the traffic light for
Winter Park Road, turn left/north.
* From Colonial, drive north on Bennett Road, toward Baldwin Park. At
the traffic light for Corrine Dr, turn left/west and at the traffic
light for Winter Park Road, turn right/north.
From that intersection, Stardust is immediately on the left. 1842 E
Winter Park Rd, Orlando, FL. (407) 623-3393 Beware that some GPS maps
send you too far north, to W Winter Park Rd. Stardust is only 50 feet
from Corrine Rd.
Parking Instructions
The parking lot will probably be crowded, so please park on [4]Marble
Ave, which is next to (north, away from Corrine) Stardust's modest
parking lot.
About us
Café Scientifique is a worldwide grassroots effort to raise science
literacy by bringing science out of the lab and into the pub. It
started in England about ten years ago, modeled after the French /Café
Philosophique/, and has since spread to several dozen cities. Meetings
are free to attend, and we love questions. A typical meeting runs about
an hour. A scientific expert presents some topic for about 20 to 30
minutes, we have a short break to cogitate and order refreshments, and
then we ask questions, discuss, and generally have a good time.
Help us grow and thrive!
We need you to help us keep a healthy number of people attending and
stoking our dialectic fires. Tell others about us. It may be easiest to
point them to Cafe Sci Orlando's web site, at [5]cafesciorl.com . Also,
Chad loves folksonomies, and recommends using the tag "cafesciorl" to
refer online to this Café Scientifique. It's already in use to pull
photos from Flickr on the cafe web site. Use that tag on your own on
the 'Net when referring to us.
Darwin Day is Feb 12
"Darwin Day is an international celebration of science and humanity
held on or around February 12, the day that Charles Darwin was born on
in 1809. Specifically, it celebrates the discoveries and life of
Charles Darwin -- the man who first described biological evolution via
natural selection with scientific rigor. More generally, Darwin Day
expresses gratitude for the enormous benefits that scientific
knowledge, acquired through human curiosity and ingenuity, has
contributed to the advancement of humanity." (from [6]Darwin Day
Celebration web site)
While some celebrations at universities and [7]churches are large and
[8]public, most are small private affairs. Maybe you could host your
own party.
References
1. http://www.harrisinteractive.com/harris_poll/index.asp?PID=982
2. http://www.livescience.com/health/060810_evo_rank.html
3. http://www.flascience.org/
4. http://bit.ly/117cja
5. http://cafesciorl.com/
6. http://www.darwinday.org/about/
7. http://www.butler.edu/clergyproject/rel_evolution_weekend_2009.htm#FL
8. http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=florida+darwin+day+2009&btnG=Search