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Botanical Scavenger Hunt Develops Science Communication Skills

Posted in botany, Teaching & Learning on February 15, 2013|

Yesterday was Valentine’s Day, the event for which February is probably best known. Today I propose that there is a bigger and better event in February. This event is Digital Learning Day. A new national movement, the second annual Digital Learning Day was celebrated just last week. This national campaign celebrates “education champions who seek to engage students, celebrate and empower teachers, and create a healthy learning environment, personalized for every child.”

Allow me to stray just a bit from the usual drawing-specific topics covered in this column. I am not straying too far, really, as today’s featured activity can be implemented as a clever way of encouraging the collection of quality reference photographs — resources valued highly by all botanical artists and natural science illustrators.

Meet Wendy Walker-Livingston. Drawing upon her fond memories of scavenger hunts at summer camp, science teacher Wendy Walker-Livingston created a scavenger hunt about plants in which learning is reinforced through field work and technology. She describes her 21st-century scavenger hunt in the article, Botanical Scavenger Hunt.

Walker-Livingston’s field adventure is exactly what you’d expect a scavenger hunt to be — a mad dash with list in-hand and a sprint to the finish line.

What is different about Walker-Livingston’s scavenger hunt is that participants are not collecting objects. Instead, what they are collecting are images. In this case, images of 16 key plant characteristics used in plant identification (Walker-Livingston, 2009) that were collected using digital cameras and cell phones. Today, of course, you can add iPods and tablets to this list of image-capturing devices.

When conducting this activity, Walker-Livingston (2009) prepares students for their scavenger hunt by first introducing them to botanical terminology, plant morphology, plant classification and dichotomous keys. When distributing the list for the scavenger hunt, she tells students they have 50 minutes to collect photographs of the characteristics on their list and 10 minutes to download their images.

The day (or two) after the scavenger hunt, each student team is given 60 minutes to create a 3-minute multimedia presentation that includes a narrated description of the images they collected.

Walker-Livingston (2009) says her activity has been successful on many levels. Students love the activity, the multimedia project helps students verbalize their new knowledge and the project successfully addresses the various ways learners interact with the world, ways Howard Gardner describes in his theory of multiple intelligences.

Walker-Livingston’s Botanical Scavenger Hunt is easy to add to your teaching toolbox. This article can be purchased online for 99¢ from the NSTA store.

Literature Cited
Walker-Livingston, Wendy. 2009. Botanical scavenger hunt. Science Scope. 32(6): 31-34.

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Study & Draw Carnivorous Plants at Splinter Hill Bog

Posted in botanical art, botany, Education, general botany, Learning Opportunities, nature, Sketching & Journaling, travel on February 12, 2013|

Valerie Webb of The Illustrated Garden will lead a three-day workshop at Splinter Hill Bog in Alabama, a preserve that is home to several species of carnivorous plants, including five species of pitcher plants.

Here is what’ new at Classes Near You > Alabama!

The Illustrated Garden, A Studio Blog
www.valwebb.com
Val Webb is the 2013 Artist-in-Residence at the Mobile Botanical Gardens. This year Val will work at the gardens and encourage others to sketch the garden’s collections to learn about plants, gardening and all that the Mobile Botanical Gardens has to offer. Visit Val’s website to view her online tutorial, Botanical Drawing with Pencil and Watercolor. Connect with The Illustrated Garden on Facebook.

Botanical Drawing: Splinter Hill Bog and Beyond

detailed itinerary and registration information

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Preschool Botany: Play, Explore, Draw

Posted in botany, drawing, Teaching & Learning, teaching and learning on February 8, 2013|

With spring and Earth Day fast-approaching, here is a resource you’ll want to refer to the next time you need to talk about plants with preschool children. It will also help you introduce young audiences to the subjects of inheritance and traits.

In Plants, Alike and Different professor Kathy Cabe Trundle and doctoral students Mandy McCormick Smith and Katherine N. Mollohan explain how they use a learning cycle involving play, exploration, and discussion to teach students how plants and insects are alike and different. Below is a general overview of their process. For a thorough review that includes the prompts they use in class and how they bridge one activity with another, read their enlightening paper.

During the Play Phase of the learning cycle, Trundle et al. (2013) provide children with unstructured playtime in a play area that has been stocked with silk flowers and plants. The authors state they often observe children pretending to pick flowers and pretending to plant a garden. Trundle et al. (2013) explain that unstructured playtime with plants gives children time to think about plants and to ask questions about them. Instructor-guided learning begins later in this phase and begins with a conversation about how humans are similar and different. This then leads to a conversation about how plants are similar and different (Trundle, et al., 2013).

During the Exploration Phase, students compare two types of marigolds, two types of pansies and two types of coleus plants to make observations about flower size, flower number, leaf shape, leaf color, textures, stem length and stem shape (Trundle, et al., 2013). Children document observations by drawing them, by creating leaf rubbings and by tracing leaves. The visual data recorded by children are then shared, much like how works-in-progress are shared at the end of a botanical illustration workshop. The sharing of data enables students to more easily see patterns in color, shape, size etc.

This visual information created during the Exploration Phase is paired with detailed discussion during the Discussion Phase of the learning cycle. Student observations are grouped and then arranged in a graphic organizer (i.e., chart). This chart helps students compare traits for each plant they studied.

The process of observing similarities and differences described above helps establish a foundation for more detailed conversations about traits and inheritance, concepts that are the focus of Part II of this activity by Trundle, et al. (2013). A link to their activity about inheritance is included in their paper.

Also included in their paper is a link to the rubric the authors use to evaluate student drawings and assess student understanding. The rubric serves as a checklist of objectives and targeted behaviors and is based on a project about helping children draw and sketch from observation from Illinois Projects in Practice at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Published just this week, Trundle et al. (2013) can be purchased online for 99¢.

Literature Cited
Trundle, Kathy Cabe, and Katherine N. Mollohand and Mandy McCormick Smith. 2013. Plants, alike and different. Science and Children. 50(6): 52-57

Related Resources

Look Once, Look Again – Fruit and Seeds by David M. Schwqrtz and Dwight Kuhn
Look Once, Look Again – Plant Leaves by David M. Schwartz
Secrets of the Garden: Food Chains and the Food Web in Our Backyard by Kathleen Weidner Zoehfeld and Priscilla Lamont
Trait-based Learning with Trading Cards

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Plant Identification at Fullerton Arboretum

Posted in botany, Education, general botany, Learning Opportunities on February 6, 2013|

A three-part series in plant identification begins this weekend at the Fullerton Arboretum.

Here’s the latest from Classes Near You > Southern California:

Fullerton Arboretum
www.fullertonarboretum.org
Located on the campus of California State University Fullerton, the Fullerton Arboretum was established in 1979 and is the largest botanical garden in Orange County.

Introduction to Plant Identification

Intro to Plant ID (Part I) – February 9, 2013
Intro to Plant ID (Part II) – March 23, 2013
Intro to Plant ID (Part III) – April 13, 2013

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Use Trading Cards to Teach Natural History

Posted in botanical art, botany, Teaching & Learning on January 25, 2013| 4 Comments »

Trading cards are small 2.5″ x 3.5″ pieces of paper about a specific subject that were created to be traded with others (think baseball cards and artist trading cards). The only difference between artist trading cards (ATCs) and baseball cards are that ATCs are decorated by each individual before they are traded.

Biology graduate student, Jay M. Fitzsimmons, put the trading card concept to good use recently during a presentation he made to a group of young naturalists. Invited to speak about his dissertation research, Fitzsimmons designed a creative learning activity to replace his standard PowerPoint presentation. He describes this activity in Local Species Trading Cards: An Activity to Encourage Scientific Creativity and Ecological Predictions from Species’ Traits.

Fitzsimmons’ Challenge

Fitzsimmons’ Solution: Engage young naturalists in an activity that is enjoyable, sparks creativity and encourages critical thinking.

Fitzsimmons’ current research focus is about how Canadian butterflies respond to climate change. As Fitzsimmons (2012) explains in his paper, his primary research question is, Can a butterfly species’ response to climate change be predicted based on a species’ traits?

To explain this concept to members of a young naturalists club, Fitzsimmons (2012) created stacks of butterfly trading cards. On one side of a card was a photograph of a species of butterfly and the other side contained a summary of this species’ traits. He chose 12 species local to his location in Ottawa, Canada and created a stack of 12 trading cards for each member (Fitzsimmons, 2012).

After introducing members to his research, he distributed the stacks of cards he prepared. He then instructed members to sort the cards into two piles — one for butterfly species “likely to shift north rapidly” in response to climate change and the other for butterfly species “unlikely to shift north rapidly” in response to climate change (Fitzsimmons, 2012).

Each member paired up with another member and together they sorted through their decks of cards, discussed the traits of each species, and made predictions about how a given species might respond to climate change. Club members were given 20 minutes to sort through their cards and then shared their predictions and justified their thinking during a group discussion (Fitzsimmons, 2012).

In his review, Fitzsimmons (2012) states the activity was well-received by both the young naturalists and participating adults. He also mentions that during this activity, club members were able to justify their predictions the same way professional biologists would, but “with less jargon” (Fitzsimmons, 2012). In light of this positive outcome, he encourages educators to modify his activity when teaching other natural history subjects.

Fitzsimmons’ activity can be adapted easily to encourage an interest in plants, and even a bit of botanical art along the way, especially if art-specific papers that can handle different media are used.

How can we use ATCs to teach about plants? Let’s toss around some ideas.

How about trait-based studies of plant adaptations?
What about plant-pollinator relationships?
Life history patterns? Resource allocation? Plant communities?

What else comes to mind? Share your ideas below.

Literature Cited
Fitzsimmons, Jay M. 2012. Local species trading cards: An activity to encourage scientific creativity and ecological predictions from species’ traits. Journal of Natural History Education and Experience. 6:10-15.Web. http://naturalhistorynetwork.org/journal/articles/local-species-trading-cards-an-activity-to-encourage-scientific-creativity-and-ecological-predictions-from-species-traits [accessed 24 January 2013]

Also See

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Botanical Wall Charts On View at Hunt Institute Open House

Posted in botanical art, botany, Special Announcements, Special Events, Teaching & Learning on January 22, 2013|

The Hunt Institute of Botanical Documentation will host its annual open house in June. This year the library will host lectures and tours related to the exhibition What We Collect: Recent Art Acquisitions, 2007-2012.

Here is the schedule of events:

Sunday, June 23, 2013

1:15–1:30
Welcome and Introduction in Reading Room by Publication and Marketing Manager Scarlett Townsend

1:30–2:15
Exhibition Tour of What We Collect: Recent Art Acquisitions, 2007–2012 by Curatorial Assistant Carrie Roy

2:15–3:00
Walking tour of Reading Room furniture by Publication and Marketing Manager Scarlett Townsend

3:15–4:00
Botanical Wall Charts
Lugene Bruno, Curator of Art
Bruno will present an overview of the Hunt Institute’s collection of instructional wall charts that were produced in Europe and circulated around the world from the late 19th to the early 20th centuries. Using the less expensive printing process of lithography, these large-scale charts featured the characteristics of important plant families (often in magnified detail) and were used in introductory to advanced botany courses. As information became accessible in different formats, this important record of educational presentation fell into disuse. In recent decades these charts have often been retrieved from neglected storage areas and dumpsters and donated to institutions for preservation.

4:00–4:30
Enjoy exhibition and displays; talk with curators and staff

Monday, June 24, 2013

1:15–1:30
Welcome and Introduction in Reading Room by Curator of Art Lugene Bruno

1:30–2:15
Exhibition Tour of What We Collect: Recent Art Acquisitions, 2007–2012 by Curatorial Assistant Carrie Roy

2:15–3:00 W
Walking tour of Reading Room furniture by Publication and Marketing Manager Scarlett Townsend

3:15–3:45
From Field to Folio: Stories Behind Botanical Publications
Jeannette McDevitt, Assistant Librarian
Long before our modern conveniences, such as overnight shipments and photocopies, passionate botanists and botanical artists were pouring blood, sweat and tears into their work. Ever at the mercy of the natural elements, each other and tight budgets, they traveled near and far to document the world’s flora. McDevitt will display some of Hunt Institute’s special items and speak about the dramas, disasters and absurdities that went on behind the scenes before these beautiful books could come to fruition.

3:45–4:30
Enjoy exhibition and displays; talk with curators and staff

Related

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Anita Walsmit Sachs Turns Information Into Pictures

Posted in ArtPlantae Books, botanical art, botanical art books, botany, Drawing on January 1, 2013| 10 Comments »

Anita Walsmit Sachs is the director of the art department and a scientific illustrator at the National Herbarium in the Netherlands at the University of Leiden. Ten years ago, Anita started teaching botanical art classes at the university’s botanical garden. During the next four years, enrollment in her classes grew. In 2006, Anita and some of her students formed the Dutch Society of Botanical Artists. Now 136 members strong, the Society will celebrate its seventh anniversary in April.

The focus of Anita’s work as a scientific illustrator is to visualize botanical information. Integrating information observed in dried plant specimens with the verbal instructions from botanists with whom she works, Anita creates line drawings in pen and ink that contain more information than could ever fit in a color photograph.

Please welcome Anita Walsmit Sachs, our special guest for January.