WCU hosts two lectures about technology, education March 1

This article features an event that occurred in the past.

Western Carolina University will host seminars Monday, March 1, focusing on an online encyclopedia of life and on how memorization works in the age of Web-based search engines.

The events will begin with a presentation about Discover Life, an online encyclopedia on life, from 4:30 to 6 p.m. in the auditorium of the Natural Science Building. Nancy Lowe, the outreach coordinator for Discover Life, and John Pickering, a faculty member in the Odum School of Ecology at the University of Georgia, will discuss how Discover Life can serve needs in professional scientific research, elementary school science and backyard explorations. Discover Life is an online place where people can collaborate on species pages and range records, build custom identification guides, and store and share photographs.

Pickering, who also co-founded Great Smoky Mountains National Park’s All Taxa Biodiversity Inventory, will then host “Post-Memorization: What Should We Teach in the Age of Google?” at 7:30 p.m. in Niggli Theatre. The seminar is part of the 2010 Jerry Jackson Lecture series sponsored by the WCU Honors College, the department of philosophy and religion, and the department of biology.

Both events are free and open to the public.

For more information about the events, contact David Henderson, visiting instructor of philosophy and religion at WCU, by e-mail at dghenderson@email.wcu.edu or by telephone at 828-227-2932.