UWP faculty, students help museum celebrate Darwin

Summer Ostrowski, Chris Noto at Darwin Day.

Chris Noto as Charles Darwin.

While most of us were busy preparing for Mardi Gras, UW-Parkside Assistant Biology Professor Chris Noto, Biological Sciences Lecturer Summer Ostrowski, and graduate student Sean Murphy were busy celebrating Charles Darwin's birthday. Both occasions fell on Tuesday, Feb. 12, this year.

To honor the British naturalist, a crowd gathered recently at Kenosha's Dinosaur Discovery Museum to study examples of evolution.

Writing on the web site Why Evolution is True, UW-Parkside Biological Sciences Professor Greg Mayer said, "...for Darwin Day my University of Wisconsin-Parkside colleagues Ostrowski and Noto had a table of fossils, casts, models, and kids' activities set up in the foyer hall," Mayer wrote. "Also in the foyer, UW-P graduate student Sean Murphy had turtle shells and turtles on hand to help explain the evolution of turtles."

Mayer called turtles the "quintessential charismatic mesofauna" with the "most radically transformed body plan of any tetrapod."

UW-Parkside grad student Sean Murphy told the Kenosha News turtles are known in the scientific community for their ability to adapt to their surroundings.

"That's why I brought them today. They're little teachers," Murphy stated.  

Ostrowski, Noto, and Murphy were joined during the Darwin Day celebration by Carthage College Institute of Paleontology Director Dr. Thomas Carr. Mayer noted UW-Parkside alumna Rachel Baker assisted Murphy with the turtles. 

The Dinosaur Discovery Museum, located at 5608 10th Ave. in Kenosha, held its Darwin Day festivities Sunday, Feb. 10.

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ABOUT THIS STORY:

Story Status: Archived
Publish date: 2/21/2013

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