The latest issue of Evolution: Education and Outreach — the new journal promoting the accurate understanding and comprehensive teaching of evolutionary theory for a wide audience — is now published. The theme for the issue (volume 5, number 4), edited by Bruce S. Lieberman, is biogeography. Articles on the theme include "The Geography of Evolution and the Evolution of Geography"; "Invasive Species and Evolution"; "Using Marine Snails to Teach Biogeography and Macroevolution"; "The Geography of Speciation: Case Studies from Birds"; "The (Paleo)Geography of Evolution"; "Historical Biogeography"; and "Species’ Geographic Distributions Through Time." Plus there are various articles on the teaching of evolution.
Also included is the latest installment of NCSE's regular column, Overcoming Obstacles to Evolution Education. In "Evolution and Biogeography: Leading Students in Darwin’s and Wallace’s Footsteps," NCSE's Joshua Rosenau suggests, "Exploring life's diversity and geography's effect on it was central to Darwin['s] and Wallace's parallel discoveries of evolution. Those discoveries required the two to overcome their own misconceptions about species and biology. By helping students to see the world through the eyes of explorers and placing life's diversity into a geographic context, teachers can help students overcome those same barriers to the acceptance of evolution and deepen students' appreciation of diversity."
In his editorial introduction to the issue, Niles Eldredge reports, "Beginning in January 2013, E: E&O will become an 'Open Access' journal — freely available to everyone the world over with access to the internet," adding, "we are thrilled that the journal's contents (including all back content over the first five years) will soon be freely available to everyone. We are proud of what E: E&O has brought to the world in terms of the understanding and communication of evolutionary concepts. We thank all of our contributors — writers, editors, and reviewers — who have made the journal so successful so far. Now that E: E&O will be even more accessible to both the scientific and educational communities, we look forward to making an even bigger difference in the years to come!"