Last weekend was Picnic Day, one of UC Davis’ biggest outreach days! The students of the Center for Population Biology put together an exhibit on the tree of life and evolution, complete with a phylogenetic tree handout with stamps for each type of taxon, filled in at stations around the tree. We had all kinds of invertebrates, from horseshoe crabs to cockroaches to anemones, several lines of corn, and evolution-thinking activities with mammal skeletons and bird beak evolution (after Galapagos finches!).
This was UC Davis’ 103rd Picnic Day, and it’s a day that combines outreach from all departments, across the sciences, arts, and humanities, with festival-like events like the classic Doxie Derby, dog agility competitions, endless style food carts, and a Battle of the Bands with costumed and dancing pep bands from all over California. We don’t have the numbers on this year’s exhibit yet, but previous Picnic Days have brought over 125,000 people to campus.
I brought in some fishy specimens (a cornetfish (Fistularia petimba) and a butterfly ray (Gymnura micrura)) to show folks. Though we didn’t have live fishes, the specimens
worked really well: people (and especially kids) loved getting their hands on the specimens. Both were NOAA bycatch used in the Cornell Vertebrate Biology course I worked for as a teaching assistant as an undergrad…outreach and teaching specimens getting multiple chances at education!
Looking forward to seeing what we put together for next year! Under the direction of Kristin Lee, the exhibit ran smoothly, and we won the Best ‘Secrets of Nature’ Exhibit!
Katherine Corn 