Creating a university evolution garden: An integrated learning approach for teaching land plant evolution

Abstract

Societal Impact StatementSolutions to many of society's major challenges currently relate to plants, for example, feeding a growing global population, reducing crop water use, minimising pesticide use, and mitigating climate change, to name just a few. Solving global challenges requires high‐calibre plant science graduates with a fundamental understanding of plant evolution and the impacts of past climate change on extinction and speciation events, along with the knowledge required for sustainable global plant production, especially for food, under current and future climate change. Equipping these graduates for the future is a responsibility of university educators who must adopt innovative education methods to achieve this challenging goal.SummaryThe concept of land plant evolution is difficult for botany and biology undergraduates to grasp because it spans half a billion years, a timeline that cannot be easily visualised. We established the University College Dublin (UCD) Evolution of Land Plants Garden to improve student understanding, knowledge, and engagement in a purpose‐built ‘living’ outdoor classroom in which they can ‘walk’ through land plant history. We focus on the concept, configuration, and planting, how the garden has improved student learning, and how it could be adapted for other learning outcomes. The garden is divided into five sections depicting key innovations in land plant evolution, beginning with ‘Before land plants’, followed by ‘Cuticle’ where the Bryophyta appear, ‘Vascular tissue’ with the Pteridophyta; ‘Seed’ with the gymnosperms; and ‘Flower’ with the angiosperms. Analysis of quantitative student feedback and performance indicates that students' understanding of the subject was improved significantly by ‘walking through’ a living evolutionary history in practical classes, supported by lectures, laboratory work, and online quizzes. We present a template that could be adopted widely to engage students with plant evolution, in the context of decreasing engagement with plant sciences among young people.