Since its launch in 2004, the audience of the Understanding Evolution website has continued to grow, and the site is evolving in response to the needs of that audience. The site now averages more than a million page accesses per month during the academic year, but additionally there is a large international audience that is visiting UE “sister sites.” Through partnerships with educational organizations abroad, the UE site is now available in Spanish and Turkish and most recently has been translated into Tibetan to be distributed to Buddhist monks as part of the Emory-Tibet Science Initiative.
Jim Wynn, the Project Coordinator of the initiative, shared the following email with us:
“Emory University just completed a two-day International Conference on Tibetan Buddhism attended by over 400 delegates which coincided with a three-day visit to Emory of His Holiness the Dalai Lama. While His Holiness was there, the President of Emory University officially presented him with three science textbooks that had been prepared for use with the Emory-Tibet Science Initiative — teaching science to Tibetan monastics in Dharamsala, India. The goal of the multi-year project is to develop a science program that can be used in the Tibetan monasteries and nunneries throughout India. One of the books presented was a printed and translated version of the Berkeley developed Evolution 101 website. Each page is printed in English and followed immediately by the same page translated into Tibetan.”
We are anxiously awaiting receipt of a copy of the book and will be working with our partners at Emory to facilitate the development of an on-line version in the near future. Translations have also been initiated into Portuguese and French.