Jennifer, twice in your dissertation you bring attention to students’ indifference towards plants. In one instance you observe that one of the two exercises in which student performance was the lowest, was an exercise about drawing plants. You share a student’s comment about plants being “kind of dull to draw” (Landin, 2011). You also share that during the plant lab, students did not work in their Lab Workbooks and paid little attention to the teaching assistant. You also mention that some students viewed the plant lab as not being very important. Do you have any thoughts or hunches about what might be contributing to student indifference towards plants?
Jennifer:
That is an excellent question.
I have three ideas (just opinions really): 1) a majority of students in the biology program are planning on health careers so they tend to be very focused on humans; 2) a general human-centric focus of society; 3) a lack of knowledge about plants.
I think all three conditions could be addressed by a better understanding of plant biology. It’s interesting that biology classes about a hundred years ago were more equally focused on plants and animals. Now though, even with the increase in understanding of cell biology (which is so similar between plants and animals), we teach mostly about animals. If you consider the decrease in agricultural pursuits, society has really lost a ton of awareness about plants.
It’s too bad because plants are incredibly fascinating in defense mechanisms, competitive behaviors and symbiotic relationships. There’s so much ACTION in plants, but it’s mostly chemical rather than physical.
I would strongly encourage teachers to use more plants in their lessons – they’re easy to grow in a classroom, students can have a sense of “ownership” when they care for a plant, and there are so many great topics to cover using plants (history of agriculture & society, medicine, biological competition, experimental design, where food comes from, etc.).
Readers, have you encountered student indifference towards plants in your own classroom?
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