A Very, Very Big Free Biology Site Will Debut Online Soon

One of the most gigantic free online education projects in years is the “Encyclopedia of Life,” an effort to post information about almost 2 million different species by many of the world’s top scientists.

It isn’t going to be cheap. The venerable Sloan and Mac Arthur Foundations are going to kick in $12.5 million dollars – and that will pay for just the first two and a half years of the build-out.

The “Encyclopedia of Life” will be both scientist- and student-friendly. Amateurs, dubbed “citizen scientists” by the project’s directors, will be invited to contribute everything from observations to maps and videos to the site, which looks to be a kind of Wikipedia of all world biology facts. The main difference is that the final product will be edited by professional scientists for accuracy – something that Wikipedia has been sorely lacking in.

Project director James Edwards calls the new site an “interactive zoo.”

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