THE CENTER FOR THE UNDERSTANDING OF ORIGINS

An interdisciplinary Center for the Understanding of Origins was established at Kansas State University (KSU) in November 2003 with seed money from the KSU Targeted Excellence program. The center is comprised of permanent and visiting faculty in the sciences and the humanities. One of the overarching goals of the center is to improve upon education and outreach efforts aimed at increasing the public's understanding of biological and physical evolution. In its efforts to increase public understanding, the Center identified a crucial educational problem: most K-State students do not study the major humanistic or scientific issues of Origins.

The Center has focused on this educational problem and created a KSU general education course entitled Origins: Humanity, Life, and the Universe which covers the topic of evolution and the nature of science with lectures from physics, geology, and biology interspersed with philosophy and english. This course was piloted in the Fall 2005 and had a successful impact on student understanding and attitudes on evolutionary science.

The Center has also sponsored nine major public events over the past year. These events include guest speakers such as Michael Turner, currently Assistant Director for Mathematics and Physical Sciences at the National Science Foundation, Dr. M. Pigliucci, Professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolution, SUNY Stony, Robert T. Pennock a renowned philosopher, and two highly regarded evolutionary biologists, Susan Wessler and Spencer Barrett. Another community outreach project sponsored by the Center included a roundtable dialogue entitled Science and Creation, Views from People of Faith. The roundtable discussion included several local scholars representing a spectrum of religious backgrounds. Scholars and the public engaged in dialogue regarding key issues in science, faith, and their interactions.

The Center submitted several proposals including NSF IGERT and ESIE grants. If funded the ESIE grant develop Evolutionary Science Modules for secondary teachers to use when teaching evolution. The project also includes summer workshops for K-12 teachers to strengthen their understanding and pedagogical skills specifically for teaching evolution.