Botany Classes Research Articles

Educational Technologies of the Course of Botany at the Faculty of Pharmaceutics

Educational technologies used in the study of the course of botany are an elective method for assessing the knowledge skills and abilities of students. Allow you to show professional creative and organizational skills in the study of the discipline and in solving specific problems. The article discusses the relevance of the use of modular learning technology and the use of the case method in botany classes for students of pharmacists.

М.А. Максимович — адресат писем Н.В. Гоголя (из комментария)

The article is devoted to the relationship between N.V. Gogol and M.A. Maksimovich (1804–1873), his fellow countryman from the Poltava region. In his family there were writers and professors, they were proud of it, and Maksimovich himself from childhood dreamed of becoming a professor of botany in Moscow, but became a professor of Russian literature in Kiev and as a philologist and historian lived a fruitful scientific life. With Gogol he was brought together by his love for Little Russian songs. For the famous collection of songs by Maksimovich, Gogol offered several of his recordings and took part in its publication. Both were enthusiastic about the unrealized project to occupy university departments in Kiev together and turn it into a “new Athens,” launching an extensive educational program there. Their relations, invariably warm, were almost in absentia, until the autumn of 1849, when at the end of October Maksimovich arrived in Moscow, where Gogol then lived, and remained there for more than six months. In June they went together to their native lands, and in August 1850 Maksimovich visited Gogol in his village of Vasilyevka. Botany classes during the trip gave Gogol knowledge about Russia, important for the continuation of “Dead Souls.” Maksimovich, in his turn, left a portrait of the writer marked by professional observation and at the same time sympathetic understanding.

Project IICE

Project IICE was a multi-disciplinary learning experience designed for students at Southern New Hampshire University. Students worked together in teams to communicate scientific data that was initially collected by an Introductory Botany class. Students in this course measured trees and recorded variables, including tree height, diameter, species, and canopy cover. They shared the data with students in freshman Statistics courses, who analyzed mathematically for trends. Finally, students in Graphic Design used the data to create visual representations and icons. Students collaborated in groups that were randomly assigned across all of the courses to include members of each discipline. During the process, each student was required to help others in the group understand the meaning of the data, through the collection, analysis, and design phases. In the final group poster presentations, students explained the meaning and value of each part. The emphasis was on their ability to communicate the significance of each part of the process, which helped them appreciate how the discipline they were working in contributed to the overall success of the project. The real-world data provided a context for students to experience working in cross-discipline teams, and sharpened communication skills.

The methodology of practical botany classes in distance learning during the COVID-19 pandemic

The forced emergency widespread transition to distance learning during the COVID 19 pandemic period required the urgent development of new tools for working in the digital environment, adaptation to new methods of communication in the system teacher - student. The use of digital tools and technologies in the implementation of bachelors studies in the context of the digitalization of higher education and the introduction of online education complicated the teachers activity in designing the learning process. There was a lack of research devoted to the study and description of teaching Biology practice (including Botany) in the online format, there were no teaching materials for organizing practical work with students. In connection with the situation, it was necessary to search for new ways to implement various types of activities in the distance format, search for new ways of communication in the system teacher - student, and test modern pedagogical technologies. Since the autumn of 2020, many universities, including P.P. Ershov Ishim Pedagogical Institute (Branch) of Tyumen State University, have been successfully using the Microsoft Teams platform. The following methods were used during the study: theoretical and comparative analysis of literature, systematization and synthesis, collection and evaluation of the results of the completed tasks (reports on working with cases, test results and questionnaires). The results of the individual task - a report on working with case illustrations showed that 47% of students were rated satisfactory and 53% of students - good. The qualitative progression, according to the test results, was 53%. The results of the survey Reflexive Screen made it possible to identify the positive effect, obtained from the lesson held in the online format (100% of students were interested in the lesson). The paper describes in detail the methods for online teaching Botany at the lesson, conducted in the winter of 2021, and analyzes it.

The liverwort Marchantia polymorpha, a model for all ages.

The liverwort Marchantia polymorpha has been known to man for millennia due to its inclusion Greek herbals. Perhaps due to its familiarity and association with growth in, often, man-made disturbed habitats, it was readily used to address fundamental biological questions of the day, including elucidation of land plant life cycles in the late 18th century, the formulation of cell theory early in the 19th century and the discovery of the alternation of generations in land plants in the mid-19th century. Subsequently, Marchantia was used as model in botany classes. With the arrival of the molecular era, its organellar genomes, the chloroplast and mitochondrial, were some of the first to be sequenced from any plant. In the past two decades, molecular genetic tools have been applied such that genes may be manipulated seemingly at will. Here, are past, present, and some views to the future of Marchantia as a model.

In remembrance of: Scott A. Mori (1941–2020), Tropical Botanist Extraordinaire

In remembrance of: Scott A. Mori (1941–2020), Tropical Botanist Extraordinaire

Herbário de plantas medicinais como estratégia no ensino de Botânica

A contextualização no ensino de Botânica é fundamental para a promoção de uma aprendizagem mais significativa. Nesse sentido, a construção de um herbário pode ser uma ferramenta utilizada para relacionar os conteúdos programáticos com o cotidiano do aluno. Essa ferramenta pode sensibilizar os estudantes quanto à importância da preservação da flora brasileira e sua biodiversidade. Nesse contexto, este estudo teve como objetivo principal contextualizar o ensino de Botânica por meio da construção de herbário de plantas medicinais. Além disso, pretendeu-se resgatar o conhecimento empírico sobre as plantas medicinais, despertar o interesse pelas aulas de Botânica e sensibilizar os estudantes quanto à importância do uso consciente dos fitoterápicos. O público-alvo desta pesquisa foi o 2° ano do Ensino Médio da Escola Estadual Hilda Trautwein Kamal, situada no município de Umuarama - PR, Brasil. Os alunos participaram do processo de confecção do herbário, desde a escolha das plantas que foram colocadas na pasta, até a sua classificação e realização de pesquisas sobre suas utilidades terapêuticas. O resultado de um pré-teste (diagnóstico inicial) demonstra que os discentes não tinham conhecimento efetivo sobre as plantas medicinais utilizadas neste estudo, herborização ou sequer sobre a importância do ensino de Botânica. Com a aplicação das aulas de Botânica contextualizadas que resultaram na construção do herbário, os alunos obtiveram maior conhecimento sobre o assunto, fato averiguado na avaliação dos resultados de um pós-teste aplicado.

From dangerous branches to urban banyan: Facilitating aerial root growth of Ficus rubiginosa.

Large urban trees have many benefits. However, falling branches pose a serious hazard to both people and infrastructure. In several tree species, aerial roots grow down from branches to the ground. These roots are capable of thickening to support the branches, lessening the risk of tree failure. Unfortunately, in urban environments most aerial roots die before reaching the ground. Here, we report a new method for encouraging aerial roots to reach the ground, developed by the second-year botany class at UNSW Sydney. Our class tested three experimental treatments on aerial roots of Ficus rubiginosa Desf. ex Vent. (Port Jackson Fig)—PVC pipes filled with sphagnum moss, PVC pipes filled with potting mix, and PVC pipes filled with sphagnum moss and topped with funnels to catch extra rainwater. All three treatments significantly improved aerial root growth, with 26 of the 30 (87%) treatment roots reaching the ground after one year compared to 0 of the 10 control roots. Our method was successful for roots up to 3 m above the ground, suggesting the potential growth rate of aerial roots is substantial when conditions are favourable. Our novel approach is an attractive and cost-effective alternative to slings and other artificial supports. This project is an example of using undergraduate practical classes to teach science while simultaneously addressing important real-world problems.

Jan J. Lyczakowski.

Jan J. Lyczakowski.

Estudo florístico de plantas daninhas em cultivos de melancia na Savana de Roraima, Brasil

The municipality of Bonfim is the second largest watermelon producer in the state and the incidence of weeds is as one of the factors that most affect the quality and crop productivity. The objective of this work was to study floristically weeds in watermelon crops in the municipality of Bonfim, in Roraimense savannah. The survey was conducted in 10 properties with an area of around 40 ha commercial planting watermelon. To collect the weeds used a square cast iron with dimensions of 0.50 x 0.50 m, being released randomly in the area. They were identified to genus, species, family and botany class. the phytosociological parameters were calculated: frequency, density, abundance, relative frequency, relative density, relative abundance and relative importance value index. There were also evaluated the life cycle, growth habit, propagation method and the photosynthetic pathway of invasive species. The composition of the infesting weed community in the raised area was considered heterogeneous, with 17 species in 10 plant families. Families with higher incidence were Poaceae and Fabaceae. The Digitaria and Sida genres had the highest number of species. Most of the identified weed spreads only by seed have annual life cycle and the C3 photosynthetic pathway.

General object recognition is specific: Evidence from novel and familiar objects

In tests of object recognition, individual differences typically correlate modestly but nontrivially across familiar categories (e.g. cars, faces, shoes, birds, mushrooms). In theory, these correlations could reflect either global, non-specific mechanisms, such as general intelligence (IQ), or more specific mechanisms. Here, we introduce two separate methods for effectively capturing category-general performance variation, one that uses novel objects and one that uses familiar objects. In each case, we show that category-general performance variance is unrelated to IQ, thereby implicating more specific mechanisms. The first approach examines three newly developed novel object memory tests (NOMTs). We predicted that NOMTs would exhibit more shared, category-general variance than familiar object memory tests (FOMTs) because novel objects, unlike familiar objects, lack category-specific environmental influences (e.g. exposure to car magazines or botany classes). This prediction held, and remarkably, virtually none of the substantial shared variance among NOMTs was explained by IQ. Also, while NOMTs correlated nontrivially with two FOMTs (faces, cars), these correlations were smaller than among NOMTs and no larger than between the face and car tests themselves, suggesting that the category-general variance captured by NOMTs is specific not only relative to IQ, but also, to some degree, relative to both face and car recognition. The second approach averaged performance across multiple FOMTs, which we predicted would increase category-general variance by averaging out category-specific factors. This prediction held, and as with NOMTs, virtually none of the shared variance among FOMTs was explained by IQ. Overall, these results support the existence of object recognition mechanisms that, though category-general, are specific relative to IQ and substantially separable from face and car recognition. They also add sensitive, well-normed NOMTs to the tools available to study object recognition.

Mobile Botany

In our first-year university botany classes at Charles Sturt University, we noticed that in laboratory class, students were taking photographs of their specimens with the dissecting and compound microscopes using their mobile phones. Student-generated images as “learning objects” were used to enhance the engagement of all students, including Distance Education students who used images provided by the on-campus students. The Distance Education students did all the laboratory work at an intensive residential school, and they were encouraged to take images; these were shared with on-campus students, making them aware of the laboratory practical work they were yet to do. In other cases, images from students were incorporated into lectures and tutorials, preparing students for the lab exam. Botany students have shared their photomicrographs with their friends and family via social media. We saw interesting examples of students excitedly describing their images to non-science friends, teaching them what they were learning! In the second year, students were also encouraged to use their phones to capture their own images of plant specimens to help them master plant identification. Although we do not have any quantitative evidence of these activities enhancing student learning, it was evident that those students who took and shared their own images were more engaged in the learning process.

Seeing the Forest and the Trees: Research on Plant Science Teaching and Learning

In this editorial we link the articles published in this Special Focus section with the practical utility of using plants in education to transform and transcend traditional botany classes. We suggest current and future implications of research in this area.

Obituary: Kimball Harper 1931–2011

Kimball Taylor Harper, 80, passed away on Sunday, 2 October 2011 in Spanish Fork, Utah. He was an exceptional scientist, teacher, and mentor, and a friend to many. Kim contributed much to our understanding of plants and their place in the landscapes of the intermountain west. His influence on hundreds of students is evidenced by so many who have chosen careers in plant science, range management, plant ecology, plant conservation, and plant taxonomy and who are now making contributions across the United States. Students have honored him with various awards, such as “Outstanding Teacher” in 1986, 1987, 1989, and 1994 at Brigham Young University. In addition, Kimball was a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and he received the President's Public Service Award from The Nature Conservancy in 1987. Kim served ESA as a member of the Cooper Award Committee (1987–1988) and two terms as a member of the Editorial Board for Ecology and Ecological Monographs (1965–1967 and 1975–1979). He was chair of the Merit Awards Committee for the Botanical Society of America from 1980 to 1982, and a member of the National Academy of Sciences, Mono Lake Ecosystem Study Committee, from 1985 to 1987. Brigham Young University recognized Kim's accomplishments in various ways, such as the Karl G. Maeser Distinguished Faculty awards in 1980 and 1993, and the College Professorship Award of the College of Biology and Agriculture in 1993. Kimball Harper was born in Oakley, Idaho in 1931. After attending public schools there he served a two-year mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day-Saints, after which he was drafted by the U.S. Army and served for two years in Korea. He then studied agronomy at BYU, completing his baccalaureate degree in 1958. That same year he married Caroline Frances Stepp. Kim continued his studies at BYU and completed an M.S. degree in Range Management and Plant Ecology in 1960. Kimball completed his Ph.D. in Botany with Grant Cottam at the University of Wisconsin in 1963. Dr. Harper's academic career began at the University of Utah, where he taught botany classes from 1963 to 1973. He was befriended and greatly influenced by Walter Cottam while he was there. In 1973 he accepted a position at Brigham Young University as Chair of the Department of Botany and Range Science. He continued as a faculty member at BYU until 1996. After serving an 18-month LDS mission with Caroline, he became “Botany Scholar in Residence” at Utah Valley University, where he made significant contributions to the University herbarium, tutored many students, and mentored many faculty members. Kim's legacy continues at UVU through a generous endowment for students of botany. The University has named a lecture hall for him in the Pope Science building. Anyone who had the great pleasure of Kim Harper's company enjoyed his wit, curiosity, integrity, and delightful personality. He touched our lives and we are better because we rubbed shoulders with this gentle man. Obituary written by Renee Van Buren

"Modern Linnaeus": A class exercise on plant nomenclature and taxonomy in comparison with a previous experiment

Ethno-classification is a science dealing with a search for order, or a pattern, in the ways in which people name and categorize plants and animals. An experiment was conducted in the Botany class during the 2008-2009 academic year at the University of Roma Tre to collect data on the naming and classifying process of students not aware of the Linnaean system of classification. Forty plant specimens were shown to students who were divided into small groups and asked to name and classify the plants as they like. This paper shows the results of this experiment which was inspired by a very similar class exercise conducted at the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa during the 2007-2008 Fall semester. Differences and similarities between the two experiences are analyzed here. The hypothesis tested is if the naming and classification process may be influenced by differences in language or culture. The use of binomial terms for plant names was predominant in both experiments even if the Italian language construction may have affected this result reducing the related percentage. Plant names are mainly constructed using morphological features of the specimen, among which color prevailed. This same result was observed in Hawai'i. Some differences were highlighted in the percentage of used terms, which may sometimes be traced back to experimental settings, while the overall results of the experiments are very similar.

A Subjective Tribute to the Work of Robert P. McIntosh

A prominent ecologist named R.H. Whittaker once noted the possibility of an ecology of ecologists, their preferences being regionally or culturally determined. Whether or not this is true of one particular ecologist, Robert P. McIntosh (Mac), has yet to be seen. He would say that his career and his ecology were shaped predominantly by chance. In order to understand his contribution to ecology and The American Midland Naturalist, it is crucial to note the wide variety of work he completed, jobs he had, along with a bit of his character and personal history. In the following pages I will attempt to give a bit of insight into the career of an ecologist from the perspective of a completely biased granddaughter. The subsequent information has been gathered from the articles mentioned and several interviews with my grandfather Dr. McIntosh (Mac). At one point, I asked Mac how he came to study ecology. He knew exactly how to answer this question, as if he had answered a hundred times and knew just how to begin. It was mostly a matter of chance he told me. It all started when he was a freshman at Lawrence College. A friend of Mac's worked as Albert Fuller's right-hand man, to use his own words. By this time Mac had taken one botany class. Fuller, as the Curator of Botany at the Milwaukee Public Museum, was conducting a summer project to gather, press and send plants to high schools as learning tools. Mac's friend was put in charge of overseeing the project and hiring someone to identify the plants. Mac was hired for the job, worked for Fuller and very quickly learned which plants were which. After this experience Mac took more botany classes, graduated from Lawrence College and promptly joined the army in 1942. He was discharged in 1946 and wondered what to do next. To answer this question he talked to Albert Fuller and heard that biology laboratory teachers were needed. He was hired and taught in Milwaukee, Wisconsin until the head of the biology department there suggested that Mac go to Madison to get a graduate degree in biology from the University of Wisconsin. At first he took biology classes until he ran into the ecology department, met John Curtis and eventually became one of five students in Curtis' first graduating class. In 1951 Mac wrote a groundbreaking paper with his teacher and friend John Curtis. The study was based on the analysis of a large sampling of the prairie-forest border of Wisconsin. The data was used to determine if plant communities exist in discrete, neatly ordered units or if they exist as a continuous series of overlapping species. Mac considers the real contribution of the study to be the large sampling technique and the density-frequency dominance index that assigned weighted numbers to each species. It was in this paper that the continuum concept was named. As Mac has told me many times, the ideas of this paper were based on those of an earlier ecologist named Henry A. Gleason. It was Gleason who suggested an idea to rival that of Frederick Clements' original community-unit concept. Mac's unfailing and continued interest in the history of ecology meant he was able to illustrate for me the full story of Gleason and his initially defeated individualistic concept. In the first half of the 20th century, community ideas provided by Clements dominated the field of ecology and all ecology textbooks. Clements proposed that communities of organisms in nature are organized in very distinct units defined by identifiable boundaries. In contrast to Clements' ideas, Gleason offered the view that communities exist as a series of species that are distributed individually from one another. The widespread acceptance of well-delineated communities prevented other ideas such as Gleason's from being

It's not easy being green: student recall of plant and animal images

It is well documented that people are less interested in studying plants than animals. We tested whether university students would selectively recall more animal images than plant images even when equally-nameable plant and animal images were presented for equal lengths of time. Animal and plant images were pre-tested and 14 animal-plant pairs were selected, based on student ability to equally name the images. These images were randomly presented to two groups of university students: those currently enrolled in a psychology class and those currently enrolled in a botany class. Student recall of each image was recorded after a distracting task. The results confirmed that the animal images were recalled significantly more than the plant images. There was no apparent effect of attending a botany class on these results. However, gender effects were identified for recall of plant versus animal images in general (women recalled more plants than men) and for four specific plant images (carnation, rose, daisy, and venus fly trap). When teaching biology, teachers should present equal numbers of plant and animal examples and use the most memorable plant images possible to attempt to offset student selective attention to animals.

Are botanists becoming the dinosaurs of biology in the 21st century?

The number of botany students, botany classes, botany departments in universities and botanists attending conventions has been declining over many years in North America. This is part of a general trend throughout the field of organismal biology, not just botany. The history leading up to the situation today in North America, is discussed and reasons are given for this trend over the last century of time. Seven ways to keep botany a viable occupation are discussed otherwise botany, in the 21st century, may go the way of the dinosaur.

Fiction

Fiction Noreen Golfman (bio) Many of the established authors reviewed in this piece have been nominated for or have won major literary awards. Their credentials are impressive, and tallying the sheer number of these for every work cited here would result in a staggeringly high figure, although one might be forgiven for wondering if such nominations and awards have now become calling cards, mere tokens of establishment respectability. The debate about the value of competition in the literary field will no more diminish than the competitions themselves. Many of the works of fiction seem, to this reviewer, to have earned their tokens of prestige well and fairly. Others might have done so more because of regional or local preference than enduring merit, but surely time will sort these works out into their proper historical places. Happily, excellence, when it appears, is obvious and in good supply. To take one of the most deserving examples, one wonders if Alice Munro really needs to be reviewed any more. Every collection has seemed stronger than the one before it, although this is a fallacy born out of enthusiasm for the latest production. Munro's work has always been satisfying, immaculately observant, elegantly drawn, perfectly shaped. Certainly the reading world in this country and elsewhere has come to expect nothing less than exquisitely wrought stories with each new publication. Runaway easily lives up to every expectation. It is a superb collection of eight flawless compositions. Typical of Munro's style, the stories give the impression of an effortless elegance. One can only speculate about how much drafting has served such impressions. It is one thing to have a great memory, as Munro clearly does, but it is another to harness it to the craft of fiction. Consider this passage in the title story, when Sylvia, an older teacher, is reflecting on her relationship to a young female neighbour: [End Page 24] Every so often there had been a special girl student in one of her botany classes - one whose cleverness and dedication and awkward egotism, or even genuine passion for the natural world, reminded her of her young self. Such girls hung around her worshipfully, hoped for some sort of intimacy they could not - in most cases - imagine, and they soon got on her nerves. This is quintessential Munro: observant to the finest point of truth, turning a feeling over like that until all its sides are exposed and confronted. It surely is a terrific trick to turn a familiar thought into such a surprising realization. One almost always has the sense of seeing into the mysterious hearts of even the most enigmatic characters, most of these being women. In this story 'Runaway,' Munro reminds us of her younger writing self, as well. The subject here is both the neighbour girl who is tempted to leave her husband and the feisty young goat named Flora she cares for. In Munro's widely anthologized early story 'Boys and Girls,' a young horse named Flora is freed from her stall by the young main character/narrator, who is acting on an impulse of gendered rebelliousness. The more recent story explores that same subject from a different and older point of view, so that the young rebel is now a more complicated character, especially as seen though the eyes of the older mentor. Both stories are essentially about the same impulse to break out, but it is as if they are speaking to each other across the writer's own lifetime. The question of maturation comes up most vividly in a trio of linked stories later on in the collection. 'Chance,' 'Soon,' and Silences' all focus on the story arc of Juliet, initially an uncertain young woman who takes a road away from a ph d and towards an older man. 'Chance,' the title that speaks to the nature of Juliet's fate, ends with a modest degree of resolution, or as much as Munro's characters are ever allowed to achieve. But there is something about this woman and her emerging sense of herself that Munro wished to extend into another stage of her existence, one fraught with more chance and even more fate. In the...

(148) A Lab Exercise to Enhance a Student's Understanding of Botany in Everyday Life using Fresh Produce

Students are often unable to relate the vegetables and fruits consumed as a snack or part of a meal to the plant parts discussed in botany class. Therefore, an exercise was developed for an introductory horticulture course to increase a student's awareness of botany in everyday life. Fresh produce was brought in from local gardens, grocery stores, or farmers markets. Vegetables and fruits were selected that are consumed for their roots, stems, leaves, flower, fruit, and seeds. As each vegetable or fruit was introduced, students named the plant and plant part. As each part was identified it was “dissected” to show the taxonomic features. The different fruit types, i.e., berry, hesperidium, pepo, drupe, and pome were explained. Students were encouraged to taste all vegetables and fruits as they were prepared. Most students sampled the produce as it was passed around the group. Students easily recognized much of the produce, i.e., carrots, asparagus, tomatoes, peas, oranges, and broccoli. The second part of the exercise exposed students to vegetables and fruits that were unfamiliar. Most of the students had little exposure to the more exotic fruits and vegetables that are now available. New vegetables and fruits that students said they would add to their diet include jicama, pomegranate, and star fruit.