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Origin of Life Day
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February 18th is Alexander Oparin's birthday, not the day on which life evolved. In 1924, Oparin began publishing his ideas on how life may have evolved from a prebiotic soup (borscht, actually — he was Russian). Although nobody expects that scientists will be able to create life under laboratory conditions anytime soon, they are slowly piecing together the conditions under which the origin(s) took place as well as the likely forms of early protocells and their noncellular ancestors (e.g.). This research is tightly coupled to the search for life on other planets (e.g.), with the assumption that if life evolved on Earth so quickly, it also might have evolved in one (or more!) of the 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 other solar systems in the Universe.
How to celebrate:
1. Usually a cake is best for birthdays, but not for this event: you need soup. Have kids bring in their favorite soups—both hot and cold. Especially borscht. Discuss whether life evolved in warm or cold soup. Vote on the best primordial soup. [Need parental help here because of soup-eating logistics.]
2. Read stories to the class. Try this, this, or this. Or this, if you can correct the factual errors while you read.
3. Make life! Or at least cell-like goop (it's fun): http://www.indiana.edu/~ensiweb/lessons/coacerv.html.
3. Play the Primordial Soup game. Details.
Have an idea on how to better celebrate this day? Lesson plans, movies, books — anything that would appeal to the elementary school kid.
Darwin Day | Heliocentrism Day | Origin of Life Day | Round Earth Day
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