For science education that targets an adult audience to be truly accessible, educators must go to the citizen and not expect the citizen to come to them. This is the distance education model adopted so successfully by The Open University which is the largest university by student numbers (> 200,000) in
Results/Conclusions
I will describe a new GReTL project called the Evolution MegaLab (www.evolutionmegalab.org) that is currently being trialled in Europe for use in distance teaching and citizen science in 2009 when we will celebrate the 200th Anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin. The project is designed to give participants a hands-on experience of evolutionary change by inviting them to help in a survey of shell polymorphism in the banded snails Cepaea nemoralis and C. hortensis. Data submitted by the public over the web will be automatically compared with historical records from nearby locations and participants will receive instant feedback on any evolutionary change that may have taken place.