Rest of our Schedule

Introduction: This will be an experimental course in many ways:

1. New ways to learn and teach

Classroom Methodology it self will be experimental... although you will get a grade, it won’t be based on exams taken from lecture material ( passive mode) ..instead it will be based on your projects, participation, attitude, and what you have learned which will become apparent as you design and complete the labs and activities. You will be teaching yourself and the whole class in stages. Everyone gains from your efforts. You will also offer this knowledge through production of web pages for the greater world community.

2. Information gained from experimentation itself:

The knowledge itself will in part come from experiments. Although both you and I will obtain and share information gained from printed/web sources which we use to help design, implement and most importantly explain results, some of the insights should come from the experiments/labs themselves. Thus knowledge will be derived from visual observations, from data analysis ( i.e. chemical) and so on.
We will use the following :Text Book = Laboratory Manual for Applied Botany ( I have purchased for you: cost $29 please bring in check) plus I will ‘lend’ you a botany textbook for the semester)
In addition we will use some great web sources including : Waynes word is actually a great site with interesting facts and so on.. check it out soon
http://waynesword.palomar.edu/bot15fal.htm
Plants and People (Botany 115) W.P. Armstrong, Instructor

3. Transition of Traditional Botany to ---> Applied Botany

We will be working to convert traditionally taught ‘Botany’ into ‘Applied Botany’ ( even here we need a sexier title i.e. “Drugs, sex and ..”.
The majority of people don’t want to learn about plants as they don’t relate to them ( wait till you try to teach plant biology vs animal!) This is not because plants themselves are not interesting, but rather because they are perceived as being inactive or even not alive by some, they have gained a bad reputation from other teachers who don’t know much about plants and thus put them down to their students, and thus are not highly valued. Your job ( and mine) is to be able to convince others of the value of plants and their study. Unfortunately we won’t be able to do this based on the inherent value of plants as entities in themselves, but by convincing others how valuable or dangerous the plants are to HUMANS.

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Iglich Spring 2002