A Series of Six Free Evening Courses. Participants are expected to attend all six sessions.
Wednesdays, October 8 – November 12, 2025 | 6:00 – 7:30 PM
Parkway Central Library, Room 202 (Science & Wellness Dept., 2nd Floor)
1901 Vine Street, Philadelphia

Explore the fascinating world of insect collecting in Africa in this engaging six-week course. Blending travel stories, science, and history, Collecting Insects in Brightest Africa takes you on a journey from early insect explorers to modern-day fieldwork across the continent.

Led by entomologist Greg Cowper of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University, the course highlights historic collectors and showcases insects from recent expeditions to South Africa, Lesotho, Namibia, Morocco, and Malawi. You'll learn about the incredible diversity of African insects, how scientists collect and study them, and why this work is important today.

Greg Cowper curates part of the Academy’s four-million-specimen insect collection, focusing on grasshoppers, crickets, and katydids. Since 2008, he has conducted fieldwork in Southern Africa, contributed to species discovery, and explored insect behavior and biodiversity in unique places like Eastern State Penitentiary and Valley Forge National Historical Park. He has taught with the Wagner Free Institute of Science since 2014.

This course is free and open to the public, but registration is required.

Presented by the Wagner Free Institute of Science, a National Historic Landmark dedicated to free science education since 1855, in partnership with the Science & Wellness Department of the Parkway Central Library.

For more information, visit www.wagnerfreeinstitute.org.