John- I taught a non-major's plants useful course and tried various things. Here
are a few ideas:
If you have the equipment (a large blender and some kind of screening) you could
make paper from various plants (cattails, hemp, papyrus, recycled paper). The
results are pretty crude if not well blended, but students get the idea. I have
found stores to be a good source of kits or ideas ('Natural Wonder' and 'Nature'
are 2 stores in Minn).
If a decent greenhouse is available the students could make potpourri from
smelly leaves and flowers.
Other instructors have made beer and rootbeer in class (home brewers have all
the equipment necessary and are usually willing to help). Kits are available at
brewing supplies stores.
Mushroom growing kits are available for around $20 - then you can eat the
results.
A more basic idea is to compare ice creams (my personal favorite example) with
and without plant gums to illustrate what gums do in foods in terms of texture
and consistency. These results can also be eaten.
You could try performing starch tests on various food plants, comparing the
results, and discuss why the high starch foods are usually the staples in
peoples diets. Or this idea could be modified to show how crop plants have been
modified from wild relatives (maize from teosinte and the amount of starch in
the kernels).
Hope some of this is applicable to your course.
Beth Frieders
------------ Forwarded Message begins here ------------
From: John_M_BROWNING at umail.umd.edu (jb189)
Date: 9 May 1996 05:55:31 -0700
To: plant-ed at net.bio.net
Subject: plant lab
We are developing a plant biology lab for non-science students dealing with
botanical products. The idea is for students to conduct experiments that
illustrate how products they use are developed from plants. Do you know of any
experiments we could use? We plan to do one experiment where we distill
plant material to get oils for perfumes. We need something else to fill the
time. If you have any ideas, please let me know. Thanks in advance.
John Browning
University of Maryland, College Park
jb189 at umail.umd.edu
------------ Forwarded Message ends here ------------
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Elizabeth M. Frieders
Department of Plant Biology The one real object of education
University of Minnesota is to leave man in the condition
220 BioSciCenter, 1445 Gortner Avenue of continually asking questions.
St.Paul, MN 55108-1095
Phone: 612-625-7740 -- Bishop Creighton
Fax: 612-625-1738
email: fried009 at maroon.tc.umn.edu
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