Many people look forward to planting their own garden and enjoying its fruitage throughout the summer months. Gardening can be an excellent learning experience in many ways because it offers opportunities to learn about plants and to observe changes over time. This column focuses on a long-term project of understanding plant growth and planting…

In this experiment, the extract from annatto seeds was encapsulated in poly(3-hydroxybutyrate-co-3-hydroxyvalerate) (PHBV) particles by the emulsion-solvent evaporation method. The particles were washed and centrifuged to remove excess stabilizer and then freeze-dried. The main compound of annatto seeds, bixin, has antioxidant properties as well…

As a teacher who loves to bring botany into her preschool classroom of 4- and 5-year-olds, the author makes edible plants a regular, popular feature of her students' environment. The author is fascinated when her students become increasingly adventurous in their tastes for vegetables the more they handle and understand plants. The author decided…

Chlorophyll, the most abundant pigment in nature, is degraded during normal plant growth, when leaves change color, and at specific developmental stages. Chlorophyllase catalyzes the first chemical reaction in this process, that is, the hydrolysis of chlorophyll into chlorophyllide. Here, we describe a series of laboratory sessions designed to…

This book provides laboratory experiments to enhance any food science/botany curriculum. Chapter 1, "Introduction," presents a survey of the techniques used in plant biotechnology laboratory procedures. Chapter 2, "Micronutrition," discusses media and nutritional requirements for tissue culture studies. Chapter 3, "Sterile Seeds," focuses on the…

The National Science Education Standards (NSES) provides few resources for teaching about plants. To assure students understand and appreciate plants, the author advocates teaching about plants as a basic biological concept, avoiding animal chauvinism in biology coursework, correcting pseudoscience and anthropomorphisms about plants, and making…

This study involved the development and application of a two-tier diagnostic test measuring students' understanding of flowering plant growth and development. The instrument development procedure had three general steps: defining the content boundaries of the test, collecting information on students' misconceptions, and instrument development.…

This valuable and entertaining compendium of Bill Robertson's popular "Science 101" columns, from NSTA member journal "Science and Children," proves you don't have to be a science geek to understand basic scientific concepts. The author of the best-selling "Stop Faking It!" series explains everything from quarks to photosynthesis, telescopes to…

Monk and Osborne ("Sci Educ" 81:405-424, 1997) provide a rigorous justification for why history and philosophy of science should be incorporated as an integral component of instruction and a model for how history of science should be used to promote learning of and about science. In the following essay we critique how history of science is used on…

Brooklyn Botanic Garden's Project Green Reach (PGR) is a children's program that has offered garden-based youth education since 1990. PGR focuses on Grade K-8 students and teachers from local Title I schools who work in teams on garden and science projects. In this exploratory study, the authors used field observations, document analysis, and past…

This manual contains a group of lesson plans designed for use with a slide series (not included here). Its purpose is to introduce students to the basic concepts and terminology used in the identification of deciduous trees and shrubs. The manual is composed of 12 lesson plans. The first lesson is an introduction to plant identification. The…

In this book for students of all ages, the author introduces unusual recipe ideas for the prickly, odd, and pestiferous plants of the American southwestern desert. Students are involved in cooking activities designed to spark interest in ecology, trigger logical thinking, utilize math skills, and build sound environmental concepts. Care was taken…

This paper highlights specific aspects of high-school students' reasoning while coping with a modeling task of plant growth in a computer-supported educational environment. It is particularly concerned with the modeling levels ('macro-phenomenological' and 'micro-conceptual' level) activated by peers while exploring plant growth and with their…

Little is known about the use of complementary and alternative medicine among the approximately 1.6 million migrant farmworkers in the United States. The purpose of this work was to evaluate the use of medicinal plants and natural remedies among a convenience sample of 100 migrant farmworkers living temporarily in a migrant worker center in El…

We present an inquiry-based project using readily-available seed stocks of Arabidopsis. Seedlings are grown under simulated "common garden" conditions to test evolutionary and organismal principles. Students learn scientific method by developing hypotheses and selecting appropriate data and analyses for their experiments. Experiments can be…