Mississippi State University will host its second annual Darwin Week, a week-long celebration that intertwines the teachings of Charles Darwin with events, showing another side of science. 
The week begins Saturday with a dodgeball tournament and ends Feb. 14 with a roundtable discussion on humans and biodiversity. Darwin Week events, held both on and off campus, are open to all members of the community.
Diana Outlaw, assistant professor in the Department of Biological Sciences, said she loves to teach biology and being able to share that with people is rewarding. She said she considers Darwin Week a great platform to reach a lot of different people in the community.
“As a parent and an educator, I care about the education of our young people. It is important for the community to be scientifically literate,” she said. “That includes having a working knowledge of how Charles Darwin’s ideas contributed to our understanding of many things, including those that are relevant to human health, like bacterial resistance and vaccines, and food production like pesticide and herbicide resistance.”
Baba Brinkman, biology and evolution rapper, will perform “The Rap Guide to Evolution” on Saturday at 7 p.m. in McComas Theater. 
Outlaw said a film crew working with HBO is doing a full-length documentary on Brinkman as he performs throughout the South. 
“Because we are featuring Baba as a kick-off to our Darwin Week program, the film’s director became interested in our program. They will be here Friday through Feb. 10 and will be filming our opening events on Saturday and Sunday as well as engaging with MSU students and faculty and members of the community,” she said.
Luke Venable, sophomore biology major, said he thinks it is important to continue hosting events to inspire students to get involved in sciences.
“I developed a love for the sciences in middle school. I had really good science teachers, and they showed me that science can be fun. That’s the effect that Darwin Week should have on students,” he said. “Not many people know much about science, but with events like Darwin Week, they can learn. Once you’re interested in science, it makes it much easier to study.”
Amy Moe-Hoffman, geosciences instructor, said she has found the biggest concern of those in the scientific community is that they cannot properly relay ideas and information to those not involved in science.
“I feel that it is important to foster open dialogue between scientists and non-scientists by creating a non-threatening atmosphere where people feel comfortable asking questions and where they will actively participate in a discussion about science,” she said.
“We, as scientists, need to work on increasing scientific literacy of people of all ages and all walks of life. My hope is that our Darwin Week programming will increase people’s understanding of the importance of scientific research by making it relevant to their personal lives,” Moe-Hoffman said.
Moe-Hoffman said the events will appeal to many people because it included input from so many backgrounds.
“We have programs set up for everyone from four years old all the way up to senior citizens. We have tried to include participants from as many colleges and departments as possible, which is what makes planning these events so much fun,” she said. “I have made planning Darwin Week events a priority to simply get people interested in science and, specifically, to help young people see the wide variety of career opportunities in the biological sciences. If our events get even one person more interested in science, then I feel like we have done a good job. ”