Spring is a great time to focus on botany! This issue has many ideas to enhance traditional plant activities to make inquiry “bloom” in the classroom. I’ve noted the SciLinks topics that would support the content or include additional activities. The editor has also included quotations on the value of plants from many different authors Words to Grow On – perhaps they could be the center of your bulletin board on the topic.

The next time you see an advertisement on TV for “chia pets,” you’ll have a different perspective after reading Ch-ch-ch-chia Seeds for Inquiry. (I did not realize that chia is considered a “superfood” by some). The article describes how working with these seeds can help to clear up misconceptions about seeds and extend the typical plant-a-seed activity. The student activity worksheet is included. [SciLinks: Seed Germination]
Earth’s Most Important Producers: Meet the Phytoplankton illustrates several activities to help students explore the basis of aquatic food webs in the field and create their own plankton blooms. I wish I would have had the directions for making simple plankton nets (having students make them would give them some ownership in the investigation. [SciLinks: Plankton, Protists, Food Webs]

The guest editorial Biodiversity and the Future of Food notes “…we have come to regularly purchase and ingest products that have no recognizable connection to anything that would historically have been called food.” I wonder how many of our students really understand where the “food” they eat comes from, and how plants are the basis of food chains and webs. (My students were surprised that what they called “vegetables” were actually parts of plants – fruits, seeds, stems, roots, leaves, flowers.) The author describes how the biodiversity of plants is the key to sustainability. On a similar food-related topic, Organic Milk: Is the Grass Greener on the Other Side considers the definition of “organic” and issues related to nutrition, health concerns, additives, and animal welfare. There is also a chart showing the worst and best fruits and vegetables for pesticides. The investigation in Food-System Botany helps students to consider the relationship between their own eating habits and agricultural diversity. [SciLinks: Plants as Food,  Sustainable Agriculture, Nutrition, Biodiversity, Antibiotics]
The authors of Our Human-Plant Connection raise some interesting points about the “plant deficit” in schools. How many schools or classrooms have live plants in them? Is plant science an important part of the curriculum (more than just learning the parts of a flower or planting seeds in paper cups)? Do we include botanical gardens in our field trips? Even worse than a deficit is “plant blindness” in which we overlook the plants in an environment to focus on the animals and their adaptations (and then it’s mostly the vertebrates that get the attention!). The article has a wealth of suggestions and resources to get students (and teachers) interested in plant biology. In What’s So Special About Plants? Inquiry in the Classroom, the author shares her passion for plants with her students through many activities, including the 5E lesson described in detail here. Students explore the characteristics of plants and learn how to do biological drawings. [SciLinks: Plant Adaptations, Plant Growth]
Seeds of Wonder and Discovery describes the PlantingScience online community that fosters communication between students and scientists as they investigate topics in botany. These investigations could be used as both ongoing or culminating activities. (You may also be interested in Project BudBurst, a citizen-science project related to plants.
I’m ready to work in my garden with a new appreciation for plants.