EDUCATION FORUM

Hawaiian educators participated in discussions and presentations about outreach activities supported by ASPB on July 19.
Dan Cosgrove explains how students, educators, scientists, and artists have all contributed to www.ChloroFilms.org.

Plant Biology 2009
Honolulu-Based High School and Community College Educators Gain Insight and Resources at ASPB’s Annual Meeting

As part of the ASPB Education Committee’s outreach to K–16 educators, committee member Larry Griffing organized a special brief professional development program for teachers working in and around Honolulu. The event was held July 19 during Plant Biology 2009. The main purpose of the program was to introduce teachers to inquiry-based programs using plants in high school and community college classrooms and laboratories. Nineteen educators, five from community colleges and twelve from local middle and high schools, were pre-enrolled. The program included a two-hour working group session plus attendance at the Education workshop, “Talking Science in Public,” that same evening. It’s worth noting that instead of taking the scheduled hour off for dinner, most of the teachers stayed to study research posters or talk with presenters at the Education Booth.

Attendees enjoyed a comprehensive event. After meeting at the registration booth for badges, the educators received the official registration bag of goodies. These bags included a memory stick with digital resources on Darwin and teaching evolution, the 12 Principles of Plant Biology bookmarks, ASPB classroom materials packet for K–16, and an early version of one of the Inquiry Labs on the 12 Principles of Plant Biology.

The group of teachers and speakers gathered at tables and listened to information on the K–16 classroom materials presented by Education Booth organizer Chad Jordan and staff member Katie Engen. This was followed by Larry’s detailed presentation of PlantingScience.org, the program run by the Botanical Society of America and supported by the ASPB for online mentoring of inquiry-based science in the high school classroom. Larry introduced the two core modules of PlantingScience, Germination and Photosynthesis/Respiration, which are currently online. The teachers also were given an early preview of and a handout describing the new PlantingScience modules that will come online in spring 2010—Variation in Arabidopsis: Genetics and Environment; Variation in Fast Plants: Genetics and Evolution; and Pollination. Participants and presenters discussed the nature of the mentoring experience, how the guidance provided by many ASPB members and ASPB-sponsored Master Plant Science graduate student members is implemented, and emphasized the role of the teacher as the most important scientist–mentor.

Back at the booth, multimedia plant resources took center stage as Dan Cosgrove, the impresario and developer of www.ChloroFilms.org, introduced the plant video contest he created. Next, Jeremy Pritchard of the UK’s Society for Experimental Biology described how he brings evolution to the classroom and the public through a series of engaging lectures/demonstrations in the United Kingdom. Jane Ellis outlined the inquiry labs she cowrote with Jeffrey Coker and Mary Williams to teach each of the 12 Principles of Plant Biology. The interactive museum mini-exhibit, “Real Plants, Real Tools, Real Science,” displayed by Martha Kerouac, Michael Kerkman, and Rachel Vourlas of the Huntington Gardens, was also a big hit.

In fact, Randyll Warehime, a teacher at Iolani School, exclaimed after seeing the fabulous stomata of Tradescantia zebrine in the Huntington Gardens exhibit, “I always judge professional development on whether I walked away with something usable, and I sure did.”

After the program, Joan Matsuzaki, a teacher at Roosevelt High School in
Honolulu, noted, “Hawaii’s Department of Education will be experiencing budget cutbacks and I think this will [provide] ideal activities to conduct with my freshmen biology students all year long. Thank you for thinking of teachers and helping us open the botanical world to our students.”

The Education Committee appreciates the participants for their help in getting plants into the classroom. Special thanks go to Gail Ishimoto, a teacher at the Kamehameha schools (a private college-preparatory institution for those with native-Hawaiian heritage), who did a wonderful job helping recruit teachers for the program, posting the event on local e-bulletin boards, and providing names of potentially interested teachers. Because this special event was so successful, resuming a practice started by Dina Mandoli several years ago of producing a special outreach event for local educators, plans are already under way for a similar program in Montreal 2010, perhaps improving upon this one by offering educators professional development credit for participation. Members who would like to help can contact Larry Griffing or Katie Engen.

Larry Griffing