Botany Education

Plants are often overlooked or ignored entirely in K-12 classrooms. This chapter provides background information about the idea of “plant blindness,” which attempts to explain why botanical education is neglected, and why we humans have so much trouble “seeing” plants. We suggest that plants can be an integral part of life science education, and that giving teachers and students the chance to learn about and explore plant life in their communities will enhance their environmental awareness and sense of place. To this end, we make a case for giving teachers and students the skills they need to learn about the plants around them, including scientific nomenclature, evolution, and ecology. Included in the chapter are ideas for how to use nature-based outdoor experiences to teach about the environment, with an emphasis on National Science Education Standards and Environmental Education goals.

People’s diminished awareness of plants, affected by anthropogenic environmental deterioration, has challenged science education to overcome the obstacles impeding a better understanding of their meaning and value. The aim of this study was to investigate the influence of the socioeconomic status of high-school students, as indicated by their attendance at private or state schools, on their knowledge of native plants. In total, 321 students aged 15–18 were asked to write down 10 plants native to Córdoba, Argentina, in a freelist questionnaire. Students listed a mean of 6.8 species of a total of 165 different categories of plant names. The majority of the species named were exotic to Córdoba (63%) or Argentina (50.6%, of which 33.8% were adventitious), indicating an ‘adventitious-to-native’ effect by which all spontaneously reproducing plants were presumed to be native species. However, the 20 most frequently named plants were mainly native, with ‘Algarrobo’ (Prosopis spp.) and ‘Espinillo’ (Vachellia caven) being the most mentioned. Students’ socioeconomic status had a significant effect on the number of species named, with the students of state schools (where the less well-off sectors of the society attend) mentioning more species and, among these, more native ones than the students from private schools. Furthermore, we defined size, colour and scent as being conspicuous traits of plant flowers that are relevant for human perception, and found that the most frequently named adventitious species, unlike the native ones, were those exhibiting big brightly-coloured flowers which ranged from being inodorous to having medium intensity scents.

Carrying her cup of coffee, Donna walked into her daughter's living room. "Oh!" she enthused, "you got a new plant!" Donna leaned close to the plant, inspected the leaves and examined the stems closely, then frowned. "Huh. What's the name of this one?" "Um…" her daughter stalled. "It's…a…" There is a long pause. She smirked and shrugged, "I call it 'Fred'." The mother shook her head in mock dismay. "All those fancy college biology courses, and you still don't know anything…" I admit it. I have been part of the problem. When I began teaching high school about 15 years ago, I often sped through the plant unit in my biology classes so that we would have time for "important" topics like animals and ecology. In the years since, however, I have come to admire the importance of plants, their diversity, and the people (like Matt, Gerry, and my mom) who know their names and how they are special. Noticing and understanding the plants around us helps us know the place where we live: the community not only in biological terms but also in sociological terms. Once our students are able to notice and learn about plants, they will have new anchors upon which to build connections that foster ecological awareness, knowledge, and action. The purpose of this chapter is to describe plant blindness (Wandersee and Schussler 1999) and some potential methods of preventing it by helping our students learn science and develop a sense of place.

This study investigated plant and animal photographs in elementary science textbooks to discern
whether there were disparities in the number of plant and animal photographs or in how those
photographs were labelled. We examined the Life Science sections of two nationally syndicated
(USA) textbook series. For each text, we identified the photographs with plant and/or animal
content and evaluated them for two features: (1) the subject of the photograph, and (2) the specificity
of the label (name) provided. We found that photographs with animal subjects were more
numerous than those with plant subjects; they also represented a greater diversity of animals and
had a higher instance of repetition than did plant photographs. We also found a significant naming
disparity: animal photographs were three times more likely to be provided with a specific label
(common name) than were plant photographs. Not only were plant photographs less likely to be
provided with a specific name for the plant (e.g. orchid or dandelion), but also they were
commonly identified only by the name for a plant part (such as flower or leaf) or life-form (e.g. tree
or shrub). To address the disparity revealed by this study, and to encourage student interest in and
knowledge about plants, we recommend that educators go beyond textbooks to expose students to
a diversity of named plants, and present plants as distinct organisms rather than as a collection of
parts.

Carrying her cup of coffee, Donna walked into her daughter's living room. "Oh!" she enthused, "you got a new plant!" Donna leaned close to the plant, inspected the leaves and examined the stems closely, then frowned. "Huh. What's the name of this one?" "Um…" her daughter stalled. "It's…a…" There is a long pause. She smirked and shrugged, "I call it 'Fred'."

Carrying her cup of coffee, Donna walked into her daughter's living room. "Oh!" she enthused, "you got a new plant!" Donna leaned close to the plant, inspected the leaves and examined the stems closely, then frowned. "Huh. What's the name of this one?" "Um…" her daughter stalled. "It's…a…" There is a long pause. She smirked and shrugged, "I call it 'Fred'."