Biologist Charles Darwin would turn 210 years old on Feb. 12, and to celebrate his accomplishments, Gray Fossil Site hosted “Darwin Day.”
“What we’re doing is sort of an international celebration of science,” Blaine Schubert, director of Gray Fossil Site Natural History Museum said. “It’s not just about Charles Darwin. It’s a celebration of science, but it does happen to be around his birthday.”
Schubert said that Darwin Day had been going on since 2010, and it usually draws a crowd of about 300 to 400 people. One of the biggest things Darwin Day tries to show visitors is how Darwin’s studies relate to the fossil site.
“The change of organisms over time,” Schubert said. “That is what we show really well here at the Gray Fossil Site because we are digging up animals out of the ground that are 5 million years old … that are relatives of living animals. It shows very well how things change over time, and that was one of Darwin’s main ideas.”
Schubert also said that other groups were invited to the museum to help celebrate Darwin Day.
“There’s state parks here from Tennessee and from Virginia,” Schubert said. “And we have a lot of student booths too. There’s a lot of paleontology students, biology students and anthropology students that are all here talking about different things that Darwin contributed to.”
Booths were set up around the museum that allowed visitors to participate in different activities and have a hands-on experience with fossils. One booth had fossils of various reptiles.
“It’s not everyday you can interact with displays instead of just walking past displays that are railed off,” volunteer Travis Durham said.
Durham said one of his favorite parts about Darwin Day was interacting with children.
“I feel a little guilty that I frightened a child by opening the crocodile jaws,” Durham said. “I thought he would think it was cool, but instead he started to whine about it.”
Along with the activity booths that were set up around the museum, visitors could also take a tour of the fossil site and find miniature busts of Charles Darwin’s head.
“It was fun,” visitor Gaines Snodderly said. “I haven’t been here in like five years since my last field trip. It was a trip down memory lane.”
