“Naming Nature” for National Science and
Engineering Week
Naming Nature
Tuesday 13th - Saturday 17th March 2007
Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery
Open daily 10am – 4:30pm
Entry FREE
Plus
"Live Bug" demonstration
2pm - 4pm Saturday
17th March 2007
Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery
"Wallace and extreme taxonomy" talk by John
Bull
2pm Wednesday 14th March
Babbage Building, Room 06, University of Plymouth
As part of the BA (British Association for the Advancement of
Science) National Science and Engineering Week, the Plymouth City
Museum and Art Gallery will host a 5-day interactive science event
by Plymouth Marine Laboratory, Sir Alister Hardy Foundation for
Ocean Science, the University of Plymouth and the Plymouth City
Museum and Art Gallery.
"Naming Nature" will illustrate the science of taxonomy; how
scientific names describe an organism and why classification is
important to the Earth’s biodiversity. To date 1.5 million species
have been named and described but this is only a fraction of the
tens of millions of species out there in the environment.
Scientists hope that advances in modern techniques (electronics and
genetics) will speed up the discovery of the millions of species
yet to be named.
Living and preserved specimens will be on show, including marine
organisms, plants, birds and insects as well as a competition to
name your own ‘alien’ species. PML will focus on taxonomy in the
future and demonstrate how the use of modern molecular techniques
are revolutionising our understanding of what a species really is.
Students will explore how modern methods and the barcoding process
could work for them in the future.