Darwin's Original Notes Digitized

Since 2007 the American Museum of Natural History has been working to digitize more than 30,000 of Charles Darwin's manuscripts and notes. With a target date of June 2015, the project is nearing completion.  More than half of the documents are now available to search, browse, and read online. The collection of documents is organized according to periods of Darwin's work.

Applications for Education
Through the documents and sketches being digitized by the American Museum of Natural History it is possible for students (high school and older) to see how Darwin developed his ideas over time.

For younger students, Darwin, A Naturalist's Voyage is an outstanding virtual tour of Charles Darwin's nearly five year journey on the Beagle. Darwin, A Naturalist's Voyage has fourteen segments chronicling Darwin's voyage from start to finish. Throughout the tour viewers will see sketches from the journey, hear readings from Darwin's journals, and learn about the journey as a whole. The virtual tour is not limited to just Darwin's work as a naturalist. Darwin, A Naturalist's Voyage explores social issues of the time such as slavery.

And don't forget that Google Maps offers Street View imagery of the Galapagos Islands. The imagery can take you underwater to view fish and sea turtles, to beaches to see sea lions sunbathing, and it can take along mangrove-lined shorelines. The imagery also lets you see inside the research facilities on the Galapagos Islands. You can explore all of the imagery on the Google Maps Views website.

H/T to Open Culture for the AMNH resource.

Be Darwin for a Day With New Google Street View Imagery

The latest update to Google Maps Street View imagery features the Galapagos Islands. The imagery can take you underwater to view fish and sea turtles, to beaches to see sea lions sunbathing, and along mangrove-lined shorelines. The imagery also lets you see inside the research facilities on the Galapagos Islands. You can explore all of the imagery on the Google Maps Views website.

Views: Playful Galápagos sea lions by Google Maps

Applications for Education
Consider combining your students' exploration of the Galapagos Islands Street View imagery with Darwin, A Naturalist's Voyage. Darwin, A Naturalist's Voyage is an outstanding virtual tour of Charles Darwin's nearly five year journey on the Beagle. Darwin, A Naturalist's Voyage has fourteen segments chronicling Darwin's voyage from start to finish. Throughout the tour viewers will see sketches from the journey, hear readings from Darwin's journals, and learn about the journey as a whole. The virtual tour is not limited to just Darwin's work as a naturalist. Darwin, A Naturalist's Voyage explores social issues of the time such as slavery.

Go On a Virtual Journey with Charles Darwin

Darwin, A Naturalist's Voyage is an outstanding virtual tour of Charles Darwin's nearly five year journey on the Beagle. Darwin, A Naturalist's Voyage has fourteen segments chronicling Darwin's voyage from start to finish. Throughout the tour viewers will see sketches from the journey, hear readings from Darwin's journals, and learn about the journey as a whole. The virtual tour is not limited to just Darwin's work as a naturalist. Darwin, A Naturalist's Voyage explores social issues of the time such as slavery.








Applications for Education
If you teach any lessons regarding Darwin and his work, this virtual journey could be a great resource for students to use to learn about Darwin's voyage to the Galapagos Islands and back.

Interactive Exploration of the Galapagos Islands

NOVA offers an interactive tour of the Galapagos Islands as they appear today and as Darwin saw them. The tour of the islands highlights the unique animals and geologic features on the islands. As visitors progress through the tour they can view view videos and images and listen to audio tracks about the islands. In contrast to the modern imagery of the islands, visitors can select the "What Darwin Saw" tour to view Darwin's sketches, excerpts of his writings, and listen to experts talk about what Darwin saw.

Another resource about the Galapagos Islands that is worth thirty minutes of your time is a Link TV video about the impact of development on the Galapagos Islands. You can watch the film on Snag Films.
Watch more free documentaries

Applications for Education
I've seen Darwin's trip to the Galapagos Islands present in both science and history lessons. The interactive tour linked above provides a nice way for students to see how Darwin's work influenced they way scientists work today. Of course, Darwin's ideas did cause controversy as evidenced by the Scopes Trial in 1925. American Experience has some lesson materials for teaching about the Scopes Trial.

Here are some related items that may be of interest to you:
Galapagos Rap Video
Darwin, A Naturalist's Journey - Virtual Tour

Darwin, A Naturalist's Voyage - Virtual Journey

Darwin, A Naturalist's Voyage is an outstanding virtual tour of Charles Darwin's nearly five year journey on the Beagle. Darwin, A Naturalist's Voyage has fourteen segments chronicling Darwin's voyage from start to finish. Through the tour viewers will see sketches from the journey, hear readings from Darwin's journals, and learn about the journey as a whole. The virtual tour is not limited to just Darwin's work as a naturalist. Darwin, A Naturalist's Voyage explores social issues of the time such as slavery.








Applications for Education
If you teach any lessons regarding Darwin and his work, this virtual journey could be a great resource for students to use to learn about Darwin's voyage to the Galapagos Islands and back.

Here are some related items that may be of interest to you:
Galapagos Rap
Free EBooks of Classic Titles

Galapagos Rap

This video, 3.5* til Infinity, was created by some Stanford students on their trip to the Galapagos Islands. While some people may not agree with everything in the video, it's still an excellent demonstration of using multimedia resources to demonstrate knowledge. If you do teach about Darwin in your classroom, this video is an engaging summary of his ideas. There are also some great images from the Galapagos Islands in the video.


Thanks to Open Culture for the video link.