Copper fungicides and bactericides are often used in tomato cultivation and can cause toxic Cu levels in soils. In order to combat this, organic matter can be applied to induce chelation reactions and form a soluble complex by which much of the Cu can leach out of the soil profile or be taken up safely by plants. Organic acids such as citric,…

Supermarket Botany is a frequently-used teaching resource or strategy. It draws on a student's existing familiarity with plant-based foods to explore plant structure and life cycles. One of its strongest points is that it is adaptable to many age levels--from lower primary school to university and general interest groups. We have designed a unique…

Even though students see plants all around them, they tend to ignore them. Animal studies usually get all the "press." As a naturalist, children's book author, and coordinator for an educational science website for teachers, the author knows from personal experience that observing and charting plant growth can be as intriguing as observing…

Environmental issues such as climate change are becoming ever more important in today's societies and politics. Information is spread by the media, for example, via the Internet or information brochures, employing different representational styles (e.g. sensational vs. neutral styles, emphasis of human vs. natural causes). We investigated the…

School gardens--and efforts to connect gardening to K-12 learning--are burgeoning. Children's gardens--green spaces that keep in mind the way children play and explore an outdoor space--have been one of the biggest recent trends in gardening. Progressive educators have long promoted gardening as an opportunity to connect knowledge about plants,…

We present a diagnostic question cluster (DQC) that assesses undergraduates' thinking about photosynthesis. This assessment tool is not designed to identify individual misconceptions. Rather, it is focused on students' abilities to apply basic concepts about photosynthesis by reasoning with a coordinated set of practices based on a few scientific…

Role-play provides fifth-grade students with the opportunity to develop meaningful connections to environmental science concepts and understand how those concepts relate to their community. Role-play also builds students' communication skills and increases their understanding of the attitudes of science. By participating in role-play, teachers…

The Summer Youth Forestry Institute (SYFI) was developed to inspire youth through experiential learning opportunities and early work experience in the field of natural resources. Declining enrollments in forestry and other natural resource careers has made it necessary to actively engage youth and provide them with exposure to careers in these…

Nationally, both science and agricultural education professional organizations have identified agriculture as a fundamental technology to be studied by students, with the goal of achieving an understanding of the agri-food system necessary for democratic participation. Benchmarks representing the content that K-12 children need to understand about…

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…

The purpose of this study was to investigate elementary school pre-service teachers' understanding of photosynthesis and to examine if a refutational text can support understanding of photosynthesis better than a non-refutational text. A total of 91 elementary school pre-service teachers read either a refutational or a non-refutational text…

The split-root technique produces a plant with two equal root masses. Traditionally, the two root masses of the single plant are cultivated in adjacent pots with or without roots from competitors for the purpose of elucidating habitat preferences. We have tailored this technology for the classroom, adjusting protocols to match resources and time…

The reconstruction of ancient atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations is essential to understanding the history of the Earth and life. It is also an important guide to identifying the sensitivity of the Earth system to this greenhouse gas and, therefore, constraining its future impact on climate. However, determining the concentration of…

Students come to class with diverse experiences and backgrounds, and the author tries to take advantage of that diversity in the plant unit. Every year the author secures the help of the two or three green thumbs or green-thumb wannabes to help take care of the collection of plants she brings from home in the fall. The author also invites students…

This paper reports on one preservice teacher's use of the Inquiry-Application Instructional Model (I-AIM) to plan and teach an instructional sequence on photosynthesis to 5th-grade students. Analysis of the preservice teacher's planned and enacted instructional sequences and interviews shows that the preservice teacher was successful in leveraging…