Recent Posts

From LUCA to Lily: 12 perspectives for teaching about plants

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The other day I was talking to a friend about the need to demystify plants, so that teachers feel as confident in their teaching of plant biology as they do about animal biology. I wonder if sometimes we teach plants too much in isolation, so it’s not always clear how plants relate to other organisms…

Educational videos for plant biology: TED, iBiology and Gatsby Plants Summer School

We've assembled a collection of relatively accessible talks by scientists. These include: TED talks, which are directed at a general audience, the iBiology series, where speakers deliver a general talk followed by a research-focused talk, and videos of lectures at the Gatsby Plants summer school for…

American Society of Plant Biologists (ASPB) and Botanical Society of America (BSA) are recruiting 20 PlantingScience Fellows to participate in Digging Deeper Project

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  Digging Deeper: Developing a Model for Collaborative Teacher/Scientist Professional Development Are you passionate about science education? Would you like to build connections with high school biology teachers and their students? Are you excited about an opportunity to share what's so exciting…

Exploring education resources focused on medicinal plants and ethnobotany

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Medicinal plants, which the majority of people use to some degree for their health needs, provide a platform for engaging students in scientific inquiry. Straus & Chudler present an overview of online teaching resources focused on medicinal plants and ethnobotany. The sites highlighted provide a…

BotanyOnline: Shared learning-support resources for improving Botanical Literacy

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Guest post by Rosanne Quinelle, an Associate Professor in the School of Life and Environmental Science at the University of Sydney, Australia. Proficiency in any discipline requires exposure to both breadth and depth, where “breadth” is akin to acquiring the vocabulary and “depth” is akin…

Science In Real Life (IRL) - an educational YouTube series

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Science In Real Life (IRL) is an educational YouTube series that’s here to show you how textbook science concepts come to life in the lab. Since each episode revolves around an experiment that a scientist does every day in the lab or field, our viewers also get to see what being a scientist is like,…

Getting a scientific message across means taking human nature into account (The Conversation)

Rose Hendricks, University of California, San Diego We humans have collectively accumulated a lot of science knowledge. We’ve developed vaccines that can eradicate some of the most devastating diseases. We’ve engineered bridges and cities and the internet. We’ve created massive metal vehicles…

Plant "Vampires" Lay in Wait

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A summary of recent research onto the recognition of strigolactones by parasitic plants, written for high school students, including a glossary. Source: Science News for Students View resource