Plant blindness has been widely examined in plant education research. However, practical attempts to counteract the common disregard of plants are rare, especially in standard school contexts. We developed and evaluated a teaching concept based upon an 'Educational Seed Mix' comprising eight annual species from six different plant families. With…

The purpose of this study was to explore the impact of authentically based instruction using the 5E model as the structure for lesson delivery on student emotions and the extent to which the students perceived that the teacher was facilitating mastery goals. Participants were 241 sophomore and junior biology students in three urban high schools in…

Basic phylogenetics and associated "tree thinking" are often minimized or excluded in formal school curricula. Informal settings provide an opportunity to extend the K-12 school curriculum, introducing learners to new ideas, piquing interest in science, and fostering scientific literacy. Similarly, university researchers participating in…

Today's biology educators face the challenge of training their students in modern molecular biology techniques including genomics and bioinformatics. The Dolan DNA Learning Center (DNALC) of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory has developed and disseminated a bench- and computer-based plant genomics curriculum for biology faculty. In 2007, a five-day…