Darwin ver.2.0 – schoolkids on the trail of the English naturalist

Snorkeling off the Costa Brava sounds like a holiday, but these young students from Germany looking for perch-like fish known as sea bream are following the same train of thought as Charles Darwin.
Darwin described the way physical changes in animals such as the Galapagos Island finches showed how they'd adapted to different environments. The school project is trying to discover the same principle in these Mediterranean fish. The bream exhibit a great diversity of species displaying a wide range of jaw and tooth forms according to their feeding habits. The Darwin ver.2.0 project aims to help students better understand what evolution means. Its founder, Sven Gemballa from Tübingen University and his colleagues from the Knowledge Media Research Center hope to engage the imagination of a thousand high school students. A report by Mabel Gundlach.


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Following in the footsteps of Darwin students are pursuing a very special project. Its initiator, Sven Gemballa is helping them to put the theory of evolution to the test. He says: "If the origin of species is a general principle in biology, then we should observe it everywhere, and that's what we want to do." With fish...or more specifically, with a group of food fish that includes bream, perch and snapper.


At home in Tübingen, Tilman, Caren, Britta and the other schoolkids have learned about different kinds of fish. These species are found in the Mediterranean...so the students have come to Spain. Their 'research site' is just behind the hotel. More than twenty species of perch-like fish can be found close to the coast here, and the young scientists hope to observe them. Unlike Darwin, who made his greatest discoveries on land, the students are heading for the water. They practiced snorkelling back home in Germany in the local swimming pool. Tilmann, Caren and Britta are excited to finally get going. Caren Neimann says: "At first you're breathing really fast, but then you calm down and you're fine." They are about to go diving into species diversity.


Saddled sea bream, the Salema porgy, white sea bream -- different species of these perch-like fish are an extraordinary example of how species differentiate and develop in very different ways. At first glance, the fish are difficult to tell apart. Body forms and behavior seem similar. But the budding biologists have just begun. Sven Gemballa decides to focus on what kind of food the various species prefer.


The bilogist explaines: "They all observed the sea bream -- most of them saw four or five different species. That'll put us on a solid footing for our work this afternoon." The analysis comes a few hours later. After examining his finches from the Galapagos in the 1800s, Darwin sent them along to a museum in London.


With a little help from the literature, the students have to identify their fish species themselves. This kind of project is a far cry from a dry lecture. It brings evolution to life, as schoolboy Tilman Dittrich, mentoines: "This is really interesting. If one characteristic doesn't fit, then you look at the others ... you go through the various tests, until you identify the species. It's fun when your guess turns out right."


Plastic models illustrate exactly how each species has adapted to a specific environment. The jaws of the fish vary, depending on whether the animal dines on algae, or bites through the shells of crustaceans and shellfish. The students are starting to understand evolution in a brand-new way. Sven Gemballa from University of Tübingen, says: "Darwin was very lucky, but we can do it here, too - it just takes a bit more technology and the ability to do anatomical examinations. The students did a great job today!" This unusual lesson in evolution will stay with them for a long time to come. This summer a thousand students from Germany will be heading for the Mediterranean to follow in Darwin's footsteps.