There is an excellent program funded privately by Thomas Kenan through
the National Tropical Botanic Gardens that has two sites: David
Fairchild's Kampong in Coral Gables, FL and in Kaua'i of the Hawaiian
Islands.
For 2 weeks you interact with master teachers and learn directly from
plants and your colleagues. The two foci of the program, called the
Kenan Fellowship, is to decrease plant blindness and introduce tropical
botany into science courses.
I highly recommend it for anyone wanting a stimulating experience and
new insights in how to teach botany - such as it is - an exciting and
rewarding journey! One great benefit of the program: all expenses paid!
Makes you feel valued as a botany professional!
See this website about the Kaua'i Gardens: www.ntbg.org
under courses and internships for the 2005 program in Florida.
Fewer contact information:
Gaugau Tavana, Ph.D.
Director of Education
NTBGHawaii&Florida
3530 Papalina Road
Kalaheo,HI96741;
Tel: (808) 332-7324 ext 225
Fax: (808) 332-9765
E-mail: tavana at ntbg.org
Website: www.ntbg.org
Priscilla Millen
On Wednesday, February 16, 2005, at 05:31 AM, Monique Reed wrote:
Thanks for the great article.
I see a *huge* animal bias in my college level students. To some of
them, trees are merely something you sit in to hunt from.
I think this is because most of them have had the interest
beaten/bored out of them in prior classes. Instead of starting with,
"This is a plant--it can make its own food, it can make oxygen, it can
skip sex altogether, you can reproduce it from a single leaf, it
mimics a bee to acheive pollination, this one can eat bugs, etc.
Isn't it cool?" they were given, "This is a plant cell--here are the
chloroplasts... Memorize all the parts of the cell and the
photosynthetic pathway." Snore...
If you hit them with the "gee whiz" factor up front, more of them stay
awake for the hard science later on. I realize that, in a way, that
is catering to the "entertain me" mentality, but you do need to find
the hook that draws them in. We need to have students at all levels
poking in terraria, lying belly-down in patches of bluets, tasting odd
crops, and mucking about in wet ditches.
Monique Reed
Texas A&M
"David R. Hershey" wrote:
"Plant Content in the National Science Education Standards"
http://www.actionbioscience.org/education/hershey2.html
David R. Hershey
--
WPC5
*******************************************************************************
Priscilla S. Millen
Professor of Botany Fax: 808-455-0509
Leeward Community College Website for Botany 130:
96-045 Ala Ike, Pearl City Plants in the Hawaiian Environment
Hawaii 96782 htttp://emedia.leeward.hawaii.
Office phone: 808-455-0285 edu/millen/bot130
*******************************************************************************
