Floratherapy is a creative arts technique involving the manipulation and use of flowers. It can be used to facilitate clients' awareness into inner issues, allowing them to view their life situations through a nonthreatening and often nonverbal means. This article presents one portion of a qualitative research project designed to explore the…

We describe a laboratory exercise developed for a cell biology course for second-year undergraduate biology majors. It was designed to introduce undergraduates to the basic molecular biology techniques of Western blotting and immunodetection coupled with the technique of tissue printing in detecting the presence, relative abundance, and…

Hairy root transformation has been widely adapted in plant laboratories to rapidly generate transgenic roots for biochemical and molecular analysis. We present hairy root transformations as a versatile and adaptable model system for a wide variety of undergraduate laboratory courses and research. This technique is easy, efficient, and fast making…

Inquiry-based labs have been shown to greatly increase student participation and learning within the biological sciences. One challenge is to develop effective lab exercises within the constraints of large introductory labs. We have designed a lab for first-year biology majors to address two primary goals: to provide effective learning of the…

The Nature Conservancy's (TNC) Orchard Bog site in Shady Valley, Tennessee, is a unique Appalachian mountain bog that provides many opportunities for student exploration. A biogeographer, a field technician, two biologists, and a historian combined their expertise to teach 100 fourth graders how historians and scientists learn about past…

To help high school students gain a solid understanding of invasive plant species, university faculty and students from the University of Wisconsin-Stout (UW-Stout) and a local high school teacher worked together to develop the Invasive Plant Species (IPS) Education Guide. The IPS Education Guide includes nine lessons that give students an…

Take plant lessons outdoors with this engaging and inquiry-based activity in which third-grade students learn how to apply soil conservation methods to growing plants. They also collect data and draw conclusions about the effectiveness of their method of soil conservation. An added benefit to this activity is that the third-grade students played…

The authors have developed a lesson to investigate basic principles of ecology, more specifically niche partitioning, while using a jigsaw activity that explores galling insects' interactions with goldenrods. Not only does this lesson capture secondary students' interest and keeps them engaged in hands-on activities, the content addresses two…

The introduction of dwarfing traits into crops was a major factor in increased grain yields during the "Green Revolution." In most cases those traits were the consequence of altered synthesis or response to the gibberellin (GA) plant hormones. Our current understanding of GA synthesis and physiology has been facilitated by the characterization of…

In an effort to get children back outdoors and exploring the natural environment, a Modular Serious Educational Game (mSEG), Red Wolf Caper, was created as part of a design-based research study. Red Wolf Caper uses a combination of an augmented reality (AR) game and a serious educational game (SEG) to capture the students' interest in the natural…

In March 1999, a ca. 45 m tall construction crane was installed in a highly diverse, mature temperate forest near the village of Hofstetten, south of Basel (Swiss Canopy Crane project, Switzerland). The crane provides access to the canopy using a gondola for in situ research. With a new type of FACE technique (Free Air CO[subscript 2] Enrichment),…

This article discusses the Beyond the Walls outdoor education program at The Franklin Schools in Rockville, Maryland. Under the expert guidance of Maryland outdoor education specialist Amy Beam, Franklin's staff has been guided to reconnect to the landscape, understand native plants and animals, and reclaim a sense of gratitude for the environment…

Outdoor educational programmes are generally believed to be a suitable alternative to conventional biology settings that improve participants' environmental attitudes and knowledge. Here we examine whether outdoor educational programmes focused solely on practical work with plants influence participants' knowledge of and attitudes towards plants.…

Assessing the credibility of evidence in complex, socio-scientific problems is of paramount importance. However, there is little discussion in the science education literature on this topic and on how students can be supported in developing such skills. In this article, we describe an instructional design framework, which we call the Credibility…

This study examines first graders' epistemic reasoning, in tacit "practical epistemologies" reflected in thinking about an investigation of their own design. I analyzed children's epistemic reasoning, following a design experiment scaffolding increasing regulation of scientific inquiry in a domain they studied in depth. Participants…