Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Archive for the ‘Teaching & Learning’ Category

Drawing Plant Life Cycles

Posted in drawing, teaching & learning, Teaching & Learning on January 13, 2012|

When learning about the life cycle of any living thing, it helps to have real-life examples, or at least images, to guide you through each phase. Observing the entire life cycle of a plant can be a bit of a problem if you and your audience are bound to a classroom or a location void of plant life. How can you have engaging conversation about plant life cycles in these type of settings?

Elisabeth E. Schussler and Jeff Winslow have created a solution and have tested it in fourth-grade classrooms. Their solution is a drawing exercise that is both a hands-on activity and an assessment tool.

In Drawing on Students’ Knowledge, Schussler and Winslow explain how they created an activity for fourth-grade students that provides students with the opportunity to observe and document the life cycle of a plant.

Before Schussler and Winslow (2007) could engage students in learning about the stages of a plant’s life, they had to find out what students already knew about life cycles. They tapped into students’ prior knowledge of life cycles by reviewing the life cycle of frogs and butterflies. They then turned students’ attention to the plant they would study in class and asked them to draw a picture of what they thought the life cycle of their plant would look like. In their paper, Schussler and Winslow (2007) describe what they learned from the students. Through their botanical drawings, students demonstrated they understood that seeds became seedlings, that seedlings produced flowers, that plants produced seeds, that seeds were dispersed and that plants die. They also demonstrated a gap in their knowledge — specifically that they did not recognize that seeds came from fruit and that fruit came from flowers.

To conduct their 40-day study, Schussler and Winslow (2007) worked with students in nine 4th grade classrooms at two local elementary schools and collected pre- and post-assessment data from 81 of these students. Even though they designed the 40-day activity, Schussler and Winslow (2007) made only four visits to each classroom. Their involvement was limited to pre- and post-assessments of students’ knowledge about life cycles, instruction in how to plant and maintain Wisconsin Fast Plants (Brassica rapa), instruction in how to pollinate the plant specimens, and the collection of student data (Schussler and Winslow, 2007). The classroom teachers with whom they worked oversaw their students’ daily collection of data. Students collected data such as date of germination, plant height, leaf number, flower number, pollination, fertilization, number of seed pods and the number of seeds per pod.

Since student knowledge about plant life cycles was to be determined by the presence or absence of information in student drawings, Schussler and Winslow (2007) created a checklist to help them code information in each drawing. This checklist was used on pre-assessment drawings and on the post-assessment drawings students created on the last day of the project. The instructions for the post-assessment drawing were identical to the instructions given for the pre-assessment drawing (Schussler & Winslow, 2007).

Here is what Schussler and Winslow (2007) observed in students’ drawings after they had observed and documented the life cycle of Brassica rapa:

  • 65% of students drew fruit and seed pods in their second drawing. Only 4% of students included fruit or seed pods in their first drawing.
  • 33% of students drew cotyledons (seed leaves) in their second drawing. None of the students included seed leaves in their first drawing.
  • 40% of students correctly placed fruit in locations where a flower was once located. In the pre-assessment drawing, only 4% of students drew fruit where a flower had been. This change suggests that students learned the relationship between flowers and fruit.

Schussler and Winslow (2007) found the drawing activity to be a fun learning tool and an effective assessment tool. The most revealing discovery to come out of their research was that much of what the students learned about plants was learned without receiving any planned instruction. Teachers from participating classrooms were not required to present specific information about plant growth. What students learned about plant life cycles was learned through direct observation and data collection (Schussler & Winslow, 2007). The knowledge and insight gained by students through direct observation was consistent from class to class, suggesting to Schussler and Winslow (2007) that their hands-on growing activity and drawing assessment tool was effective in all settings, whether or not teachers presented additional information about plant growth to their students.

View the materials and methods used by Schussler and Winslow (2007), a copy of the checklist they used to evaluate drawings, and sample pre- and post-assessment drawings in Drawing on Students’ Knowledge, available online for free, available at the store of the National Science Teachers Association for 99¢, or in the January 2007 issue of Science and Children. Look for this issue in the reference section of your local college library.


Literature Cited
Schussler, Elisabeth and Jeff Winslow. 2007. Drawing on students’ knowledge. Science and Children. 44(5): 40-44.


Related
View the life cycle of Brassica rapa, the Wisconsin Fast Plant

Read Full Post »

What do textbooks teach us about plants?

Posted in botany, environmental education, Teaching & Learning on January 6, 2012| 1 Comment »

Finding an answer to this question was the focus of a study created by
Elisabeth E. Schussler, Melanie A. Link-Perez, Kirk M. Weber and Vanessa H. Dollo. They reported their findings in Exploring Plant and Animal Content in Elementary Science Textbooks.

To determine how plants and animals were presented in nationally-distributed textbooks, they reviewed two sets of general science books — the Science series (2006) by Harcourt and the Science series (2005) by Macmillan McGraw-Hill. Schussler, et al. (2010) conducted a detailed analysis of the textbooks used in grades 1-5.

General science textbooks address concepts from many areas of science and this information is presented in many ways. Schussler, et al. (2010) studied only the life science units of each textbook and focused their analysis on the body of text within each section. They decided to leave sections of complementary information within each chapter (i.e., text boxes, special features, activities, chapter summary questions, etc.) out of their analysis. They searched specifically for plant-focused and animal-focused content to determine the following:

  • The number of sub-sections and pages of plant and animal content.
  • The number of plant and animal examples used in each text.
  • The number of plant and animal topics included in each text.

Here is a summary of what Schussler, et al. (2010) discovered:

  • In both textbook series, the number of sub-sections dedicated exclusively to non-human animals was greater than the number of sub-sections dedicated exclusively to plants. The number of content pages about animals was equal to the number of content pages about plants in the Harcourt series. In the Macmilian McGraw-Hill series, there were more animal pages than plant pages.
  • In both publisher’s textbooks, the number of animal examples used exceeded the number of plant examples used. The most repeated examples of plants in the Harcourt series were tree, grass, moss, pine and fern. In the Macmillian McGraw-Hill series, the most repeated examples of plants were tree, grass, corn, cactus and oak. The most repeated examples of animals were almost identical. They were bird, fish, insect, frog and deer. In the Harcourt series, snake tied with deer.
  • More animal-related topics were included in the textbooks than plant-related topics.

How did the research team sift though all that content and decide what was an animal-related topic and a plant-related topic?

The topic categories were identified after a careful analysis of the text. Schussler, et al. (2010) identified categories such as “seed germination”, “plant growth”, “reproduction”, and many others. After sorting through their list of categories, they came up with a list of topics that encompassed all the categories they identified. This final list addressed the following topics: Parts, Needs, Types, Growth, Reproduction, Uses, Adaptations, and Where Specimens Live (Schussler, et al., 2010). As far as plants were concerned, the topic “Plant Parts” received more attention than the topic of “Animal Parts” in both series. After this, though, content about animal needs, animal types, animal adaptations, etc. was more prevalent than the needs of plants, the types of plants growing on Earth, their adaptations and the landscapes they call home.

Schussler, et al. (2010) propose that textbooks may be contributing to the gap in knowledge observed in students when students are asked to name plants and animals. They also propose that textbooks may be contributing to students’ perception that plants are boring because plants are presented more as “parts” and not as living entities with needs, adaptations and all the rest.

Schussler, et al. (2010) recommend a thorough analysis of textbooks in all countries to find out if the differences they found in the Harcourt and Macmillian McGraw-Hill textbooks are present in other general science books. They also call upon botanists and all botany educators to use as many real world examples about plants as possible to encourage a comprehensive, big-picture view of plants.


Did You Know?


Literature Cited
Schussler, Elisabeth E. and Melanie A. Link-Perez, Kirk M. Weber, Vanessa H. Dollo. 2010. Exploring plant and animal content in elementary science textbooks. Journal of Biological Education. Vol. 44(3): 123-128.

Buy this article online from Taylor & Francis Online ($36) or visit the reference section at your local college library.

Read Full Post »

Thoughtful Observation

Posted in Teaching & Learning on December 30, 2011|

Imagine drawing and painting the same tree fifty times.

Artist Stephen Taylor did just this, painting the same tree from
June 2003 to August 2006.

He did not wake up one morning and simply decide to paint one tree. Taylor was moved to expand upon a collection of paintings he created after the deaths of his parents and a close friend. The collection took four years to create and it reconnected Taylor to the English countryside which he describes as “a constant from my youth.” After the deaths of his parents and friend, Taylor was looking for a sense of place. He found it in the fields of a farm belonging to friends. He had the opportunity to share his newly found sense of place with others when his collection was exhibited at an arts center in Cambridge. When the exhibition closed, he felt something was missing. He wanted to share more of what he experienced during his time spent painting on the farm. He says he wanted to do paintings that create “a sense of how thousands of smaller worlds exist within a panorama.”

So Taylor returned to the familiar field to describe what he found there. He had become so familiar with the color changes in the field and its natural colors, that he wanted to capture these changes and moods in his work. He took photos, painted sketches in oil and found he kept returning to a big 250-year old oak tree. It wasn’t just the oak tree that kept begging for his attention. It was the relationship the tree had with the sky above, the hedge growing in the foreground, and the commercial crop growing below it. Each changed in structure, appearance, and color over time. Taylor began to study the biology of oak trees and document the changes in structure, color, and light he observed. Taylor says his paintings were not created according to preconceived notions of what an oak tree looks like. Instead, his paintings were created as he discovered the tree through “looking and painting.”

In his book Oak: One Tree, Three Years, Fifty Paintings, Taylor describes his three-year experience through written reflections and stories about each painting. Taylor’s words make you stop and linger over each painting and make you study the relationship the oak tree has with neighboring elements. It doesn’t take long before you are able to feel the light Taylor painted, hear the crunch of his leaves, and hear the sound of wheat brushing up against his legs as he paints yet another view of the same tree.

You will find yourself noticing the light and dark sides of oak leaves, the siliques of the rapeseed plants and making guesses about the time of year based upon the commercial crop growing underneath the tree.

Painting a tree 50 times means you have to paint the tree’s complex series of branches 50 times. While this may sound like a cumbersome task, Taylor makes it interesting to think about, thanks to the study of branches he shares with readers.

Taylor openly shares his painting process with readers in a chapter dedicated to just this topic. In this chapter, he explains how he worked in the field, painted in the studio, and used Adobe Photoshop to analyze his photographs. Sensitive to nature’s colors and acutely aware of how light falls on nature’s forms, Taylor reveals how he uses painting to help him “discover what is there.”


About Stephen Taylor
Stephen Taylor is a painter living and working in Essex, England. He studied art at Leeds University, Essex University, and Yale and has taught at Felsted School and the Open College of the Arts. Taylor’s work has been exhibited at numerous galleries including the Bernarducci Meisel Gallery in New York, OK Harris Works of Art in New York, Kings College in Cambridge, and the Vertigo Gallery in England.


Oak: One Tree, Three Years, Fifty Paintings
Now available at ArtPlantae Books

Read Full Post »

Botany Education in the 18th Century

Posted in botany, teaching & learning, Teaching & Learning on December 16, 2011| 1 Comment »

In the 18th century, botany books were mostly written for a female audience. Women were encouraged to study botany as it was considered to be an acceptable activity for women. In Linnaeus in Letters and the Cultivation of the Female Mind: ‘Botany in an English Dress’, professor and 18th-century scholar, Sam George, discusses the feminization of botany in the 18th and 19th centuries.

During this time, authors wrote popular botany books for women. Botanists even got into the game and, as George (2005) describes it, “wooed female readers” by making analogies between flowers and the finer virtues of women. Flowers became symbols of innocence and all was beautiful and happy. That is, until Carl Linnaeus came along with his classification system and his discussion about the sexual parts of flowers.

Language likening botanical terms to human sexuality became an issue. George (2005) refers to two books published not too long after Linnaeus’ System Naturae (1735), that were some of the first to describe the sexual system to British readers. In Introduction to Botany (1760), author James Lee refers to male stamen as “husbands”, female pistils as “wives”, sexual union as “marriage”, flowers without stamen or pistils as “eunuchs” and the removal of anthers as “castration” (George, 2005). In Elements of Botany (1775) by Hugh Rose, the flower calyx is referred to as “the marriage bed”, the corolla as “the curtains” (George, 2005) and the metaphors go on and on.

Suddenly, it became controversial for a woman to study botany. Linnaeus was labeled by moralist Charles Alston as being “too smutty for British ears” and there were warnings that botanizing females were “indulging in acts of wanton titillation” (George, 2005). You can imagine the reaction of one Reverend Richard Polwhele when he saw boys and girls botanizing together (George, 2005)!

Fortunately, not everyone was appalled by the thought of women studying Linnaeus’ classification system. But this issue didn’t work itself out overnight. There was a lot of discussion about how women should learn about plants. George provides an interesting overview of the controversy as she explores how two proponents of botany education for women, Priscilla Wakefield and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, promoted botany as a worthwhile activity for ladies.

Both Wakefield and Rousseau emphasized the importance of Linnaeus’ classification system and how it can help the female mind make sense of the plant world. They thought the study of botany was a good way for women to learn how to be socialized in an ordered hierarchical system (George, 2005). Wakefield and Rousseau also agreed that learning about plants outdoors was better than learning about plants in isolation and only from books (George, 2005).

Although they may have agreed upon these points, the philosophies behind their respective positions varied.

Even though Wakefield was dedicated to the education of women, she stopped short of encouraging women to become all that they could become. She thought women should be educated according to their place in society and thought that women should not enter “masculine spheres” (George, 2005). She promoted botany as “an antidote to levity and idleness” (Wakefield (1818), as cited in George, 2005).

Rousseau’s view about women studying systematics was a little different. He saw the study of Linneaus’ classification system as “true” botany (George, 2005). Even so, he was more concerned that women use botany as way to observe and describe plants instead of using Linnaeus’ method to study botany seriously. He thought it was best for women to study plants outside because the study of “true” botany had to occur where plants existed in a natural undisturbed state. Uneducated women were thought to be closer to an undisturbed “state of nature” and so had “a special affinity” for plant exploration (George, 2005).

Although Wakefield’s and Rousseau’s thinking is backward and offensive today, they are credited with giving women access to botanical knowledge. George (2005) says that because of Wakefield and Rousseau, botany had become so feminized by the 19th century that it was considered to be “unmanly”.

To learn much more about this period of botany’s history, buy a copy of George (2005) from the British Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies or read George’s paper online (accessed 16 December 2011).


Literature Cited
George, Sam. 2005. Linnaeus in letters and the cultivation of the female mind: “Botany in an English Dress”. British Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies. 28(1): 1-18.


Related

Read Full Post »

Watercolors of the Herbs of Britain Provide Framework for Dichotomous Key

Posted in botany, teaching & learning, Teaching & Learning on December 9, 2011|

Almost 100 years before the publication of the first text-based dichotomous key, an image-based dichotomous key was presented to the scholars of the Royal Society in London. The year was 1689.

The story behind this identification tool, its creator and the scientific community’s reaction to it, is the focus of Who Invented the Dichotomous Key? Richard Waller’s Watercolors of the Herbs of Britain by Lawrence R. Griffing.

Griffing provides fascinating insight into the history of the dichotomous key.

What is a dichotomous key, exactly?

It’s an identification tool. Think of it as a field guide’s more analytical cousin. You can’t flip though a key as casually as you can flip through an illustrated pocket field guide. Keys require users to sit down and observe a specimen carefully. The identification process requires the user to make a series of observations in a very methodical way and to choose between the presence or absence of a specific feature or to make “either/or observations” (Griffing, 2011) resulting in a user choosing one feature (or condition) over the other. This methodical dichotomous decision-making process leads a user through a key and eventually to a species description matching the specimen collected or observed by the key’s user.

Richard Waller’s idea for an image-based dichotomous key came from a suggestion he made to naturalist, John Ray, author of Historia Plantarum (1686). Waller suggested that Ray use images in his dichotomous tables to make plant identification easier for beginners (Griffing, 2011). Ray did not appreciate Waller’s suggestion, nor the implication that his descriptive text was not good enough (Griffing, 2011). Unaffected by Ray’s negative defensive reaction, Waller continued to build upon his idea for an image-based dichotomous key so that “one wholly ignorant in Plants may know how to find any unknown Plant” (Waller (1688), as cited in Griffing 2011).

Griffing (2011) goes into great detail about how Waller’s image key may have been constructed, using Waller’s own description of his key. Griffing (2011) includes in his paper, figures of tables Waller could have created using images from the archives of The Royal Society. How Waller actually assembled his images is not known.

Interestingly, Waller’s visual key did not receive broad support from his colleagues at The Royal Society. Griffing (2011) explains the lukewarm response Waller received could have been attributed to the fact that Waller was ahead of his time and that Waller was creating a tool to be used by beginners and herbalists, an audience quite different from the Society’s expert audience.

The botanical watercolor paintings of British grasses and wildflowers Waller used in his key can be viewed online as a Turning-the-Pages document on the website of The Royal Society. Waller’s plant studies feature paintings of whole plants accompanied by close-up studies of a plant’s unique characteristics. Waller completed his close-up studies in pencil. Look for them as you view Waller’s work. In his paper, Griffing (2011) makes reference to select paintings in the Turning-the-Pages document. You may want to view Waller’s paintings while reading Griffing’s article. Be advised that the page numbering is off between MS/131 and the online version (Griffing, 2011).

To learn more about Waller’s image-based dichotomous key, purchase Griffing’s article online from the American Journal of Botany for $7 or visit the periodicals section at your local college library.


Literature Cited
Griffing, Lawrence R. 2011. Who invented the dichotomous key? Richard Waller’s watercolors of the herbs of Britain. American Journal of Botany.
98(12): 1911-1923.
View abstract


Related

Read Full Post »

Olcani: When Plants Are Medicine

Posted in Special Articles & Interviews, teaching & learning, Teaching & Learning on December 2, 2011| 1 Comment »

Art for conservation is Deborah Ross’ passion.

Deborah Ross is one of America’s leading wildlife artists and working in Africa has always been one of her dreams. In 1987, she had the opportunity to live her dream working as an illustrator for a baboon project. Deborah says she loved being in Africa. So much so, that she bought a big car and stayed for nine months. Deborah has returned to Africa every year since.

Adjacent to the baboon project where she worked, was the local elementary school. Wanting to give back to the community that has supported her and her work for many years, Deborah formed a painting club at the school. The objective of this club was not simply to offer afterschool activities. The “club” Deborah launched at Il Polei Elementary school was the Olcani Project. Through this project, Deborah taught the children how to paint and document local plants and animals. The painting club began with indoor activities, but soon moved outside of the classroom. With paint, brushes and paper in hand, students began to document the world around them. At first they documented each other, their families and stories about Maasai culture as told to them by their elders. Then they turned their attention to plants.

Photo courtesy of Deborah Ross.

Field trips into the bush to learn about local medicinal plants were led by herbalist, Siranga Naimando. While Siranga explained how each plant was used, students painted what they saw in the field. This collective effort is at the heart of the Olcani Project. In the Olcani booklet published about this project, Siranga explains that the Maa word for medicine is olcani, the same word used for plant.

The Olcani Project is mostly a self-financed labor of love. Funds for the project come from what Deborah has earned illustrating a series of children’s books for UNICEF in Madagascar. A full-color booklet about the project has been produced by Deborah and designer Melanie McElduff. The booklet is an illustrated guide to 12 species of medicinal plants found in the Mukogodo region of Kenya. Each species description includes a color photograph, a plant’s scientific name, a plant’s Maasai name, a description about how it is used for medicinal purposes, and an area for users to write down notes. Included in this 26-page guide are 25 plant portraits painted by students, plus photographs of 18 Il Polei students proudly displaying a sample of their work. Funding for the printing of this beautiful guide came from Ideas That Matter, the grant program established by Sappi Fine Paper North America.

When she is not in Africa, Deborah keeps in touch with the students by cell phone. She trained a young local man to continue the watercolor workshops and Deborah says he is doing a fantastic job. Deborah sends paints and brushes to the school through a scientist working in Kenya and she sends books to Kenya with scientists five times per year.

Deborah will continue her work in the region next summer, this time in Madagascar. She has received a grant to lead watercolor workshops in this island country off the coast of Africa.

Visit Deborah’s website to learn more about her and to view a gallery of her work.

The Olcani Project will soon have its own website at www.olcani.com. The website will include features about each artist that will include samples of their work and a short bio. Watch for news about its official launch.

To request a copy of Olcani: An Illustrated Guide to the Medicinal Plants of Kenya, contact Deborah Ross. ($10, plus $5 shipping)


About the Mukogodo Region of Kenya
The Mukogodo region of Kenya has undergone rapid ecological and cultural degradation. A severe drought in 2009 all but eliminated the pastoralist community’s wealth (cattle and goats). The region’s indigenous knowledge is at risk of being lost as the region’s children face a different world than their parents knew. The need for conservation, conservation education and local empowerment in Kenya is extreme. The Mukogodo region is a focus point for the conservation work done by the African Conservation Fund.


The Olcani Project’s illustrated field guide to medicinal plants blends botanical art with traditional field guide-style pages.

Osenetoi (Maa name), a remedy for malaria. Artist: Wilson Losotu

Field Guide Sample Page


Photos courtesy of Deborah Ross.

Read Full Post »

Botany Program for Botanical Artists Launched in UK

Posted in Special Announcements, Teaching & Learning on November 25, 2011|

Students in "Botany for Botanical Artists" pilot program. Photo by Anne Bebbington.

The Institute of Analytical Plant Illustration (IAPI) in the UK has been hard at work developing a botany program specifically for botanical artists. This course aims to help those with some experience in botanical illustration to gain a better understanding of plants and to refine botanical illustration techniques. Between September 2010 and July 2011, the pilot for the course Botany for Botanical Artists was taught by Mary Brewin and Anne Bebbington. This ten-week course concentrated on flowering plants. The first five sessions were dedicated to learning about leaves, flowers, fruit, whole plants, vegetative reproduction and winter twigs. The second half of the class was dedicated to investigating plant families. Each class session began with an hour-long critique session that allowed students to see each others’ work, ask questions and discuss any problems they encountered. Between sessions, participants were encouraged to use their art to explore a botanical topic associated with the program. The purpose of these projects was to help students assimilate what they had learned and to assess their understanding.

Last weekend, Mary Brewin and Anne Bebbington reviewed the pilot course with students and other IAPI members at a group meeting. This review of the pilot course was held in conjunction with an exhibition of student work at
Nature in Art in Gloucestershire. Anne Bebbington explains:

A well-attended meeting began with a brief course description, followed by presentations from several of the course members. These interesting talks demonstrated well both the variety of background of the students, their interests and how the course would inform their art work in the future. Michael Hickey was the founder of IAPI and is remembered by many of its members not just for his botanical illustration skills, but for his inspirational teaching about plants. We were therefore delighted to welcome Robin Hickey, Michael’s widow, to the meeting and honoured that she had agreed at the end of this session, to present the students with their certificates of course completion.

Viewing the exhibition. Photo by Anne Bebbington.

The extended lunch break provided an opportunity to talk to both students and tutors and look at the exhibition. This included a display of course materials and some finished pieces of artwork. Of particular interest, however, were the students’ botanical sketchbooks and works in-progress, demonstrating the botanical journeys they had followed and the impressive amount of work they had done. A short practical session in the afternoon on fruit structure and seed dispersal also gave the meeting a flavour of the course.

The meeting concluded with a discussion session considering the delivery of future courses. A number of courses are already running or being planned for 2012 as a result of the pilot course and there was general agreement that there was real demand for such courses. The format of the pilot course was successful, but it was felt that there was room for a variety of formats to suit different needs. These might include one-day workshops, weekend courses, residential courses and distance learning. They should be accessible over as wide a geographical area as possible. Working with other organizations, for example the Field Studies Council and art societies such as the South West Society of Botanical Artists (SWSBA), the IAPI with its membership of botanists as well as artists, and its aim of drawing botanists and artists together, is uniquely placed to help support and deliver such botanical courses .

Students receive certificates from Ronin Hickey. Photo by Anne Bebbington.

Anne continued to explain that feedback from participants was very positive and all participants felt the course will benefit their future work. Participants felt the home-study projects were especially helpful and that they are an important part of the IAPI curriculum.

Learn more about the Institute of Analytical Plant Illustration in upcoming articles.


Acknowledgements
Sincere thanks and appreciation go to Anne Bebbington and Mary Brewin for their significant contributions to this week’s teaching and learning column. Read more about Anne and Mary below.

Related


About Mary Brewin
Mary Brewin, an adult education tutor since 2002, was able to develop her interest in art and plants through pursuing the University of Birmingham Higher Certificate course in Botanical Illustration – completed in 2005. Mary has worked with many adult learners through teaching botanical illustration and organizing various exhibitions of their work. She was secretary to the Institute for Analytical Plant Illustration (IAPI) and now serves on the IAPI education subgroup. Mary is keen to promote a good understanding of plant structure and plant family characteristics among students, artists and illustrators who want to draw and paint them realistically. The pleasure of discovering the finer details of the plant world through running a botany for botanical artists course with Dr. Anne Bebbington, cannot be over-emphasized as adult learners always open up avenues of interesting inquiry!


About Anne Bebbington
Dr. Anne Bebbington, a keen naturalist, trained as a botanist and worked for over 30 years for the Field Studies Council. As well as teaching environmental studies at all levels from young primary pupils to undergraduates, she has tutored many wild flower courses for adults both in Britain and further afield in Europe, Canada and Australia. Her interest and expertise in illustration have always formed an important part of her work. In retirement, as a freelance natural history illustrator, she works mainly in pen and ink. She is also very keen to share her enthusiasm for plants and runs a local botany group as well as running botanical workshops for artists. She is President of the Institute of Analytical Plant Illustration.

Read Full Post »

« Newer Posts - Older Posts »