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2004 workshop
    
         

2004

“The ABCs of Developmental Botany; Integrating Plants into the Classroom”
A Professional Development Salary Point Class (3pts)

Dates and Location
This is a week-long workshop from August 23rd-27th at the Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens. The workshop will be held from 8:30am-5pm in the Huntington’s Teaching Laboratory. There will be a 3 day follow-up workshop during the winter, time to be announced. This is not a residential program. The total commitment to the program is 8 days.

Course Summary
“ The ABCs of Developmental Botany; Integrating Plants into the Classroom.” This workshop is part of a 5 year educational outreach initiative program administered through the National Science Foundation on a “Frontiers in Integrative Biological Research” grant called the Computable Plant (proposal 6230979). The course is geared to high school level biology teachers who are looking to enrich their classroom with inquiry based lessons using plants. These lessons will not only incorporate state and federal standards for biological sciences, but expand on them, including state-of-the-art techniques and information.

Logistics
Each participant will receive a $350.00 stipend, and will be eligible for a $500.00 supply grant for classroom implementation of inquiry-based plant lesson plans. Each participant will be eligible for funds to provide for a substitute teacher during a follow-up workshop in the winter.

Project Coordinator/Instructor
Dr. Martha Kirouac, Botanical Educator Special Projects
Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens (see attached CV)
Additional instructors may include:
Professor Elliot Meyerowitz, George W. Beadle Professor of Biology and Chair of the Division of Biology at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech).
Dr. James Folsom, Director of the Huntington Botanical Gardens

Schedule

Monday August 23rd Overview of Organismal Botany

8:30-9:30 Introduction, expectations and other goodies, initial course evaluations
9:00-12:00 Characteristics of Plant Development
12:00-1:00 Lunch
1:00-3:00 Flower Lab
3:00-3:15 Break
3:30-5:00 Fruit Lab

Tuesday August 24th Overview of Modern Genetic Analysis

8:30-9:00 Questions from yesterday
9:00-10:30 Developmental genetics intro, model system, mutation, genotype, phenotype, pen trance, expressivity, alleles, and categories of mutants.
10:30-12:00 Mutagenesis, designing a screen, and screen EMS M2 Arabidopsis for mutations.
12:00-1:00 Lunch
1:00-2:00 Backcrossing, dominance and recessive
2:00-3:00 Allelism, Complementation and Segregation
3:00-4:00 Crosses set up and Break
4:00-4:30 Pleiotropy, and then what …mapping, rescue, sequencing, mosaic and suppression analysis?
4:30-5:00 Clean-up and Homework

Wednesday August 25th Overview of Developmental Processes

8:30-9:00 Questions from yesterday, Exercise on development
9:00-11:00 Introduction to the Plant Cell. Its parts and functions will de discussed.
11:00-12:00 Differentiation and Determination, differential gene expression, meristematic tissues.
12:00-1:00 Lunch
1:00-3:00 Morphogenesis, embryogenesis, seed germination, hormones like auxin Seed lab
3:00- 5:00 Pattern Formation, cell signaling, intrinsic information, synthetic phenotypes, additive, synergistic, epistasis ordering genes in a pathway (All in context of formation of Trichome) (Dr. Gary Schindleman).

Thursday August 26th Applied Research and the ABCs of Development

8:30-9:00 Questions from yesterday
9:30-12:00 ABC model of floral identity (Dr. Elliot Meyerowitz)
12:00-1:00 Lunch
1:00-2:30 Micro-Arrays in developmental botany research (Dr. Jose Luis Reichmann)
2:30-4:30 Totipotency, propagation and policing cell fate. With time permitting, a discussion of metastasis and tumors in plants and animals.
4:30-5:00 Clean-up reminder about reading article for tomorrow.

Friday August 27th Botany in the News, and Reading Primary Literature

8:30-9:00 Questions from yesterday
9:00-12:00 Using Primary Literature in the Classroom
12:00-1:00 Lunch
1:00-5:00 Selective breeding and GMO crops. Looking at brassicacea family for selective breeding and teosinte as the progenitor of modern corn. (Perhaps brief discussion of other hot topics in the news: biodiesel, the blue rose and cotton, methane reducing Arabidopsis, nutritional supplements, sport turf, plantation timbers, cut flower market, and medicinal plants.)
4:00-5:00 Administering Grants, Course evaluation, Network, take home plants and check silique formation from crosses.

Objectives

Upon completion of the 40 hour program “The ABCs of Developmental Botany; Integrating Plants into the Classroom,” participating students will be able to:

  • Identify the major parts of a plant over a developmental time course
  • Be able to use a dissecting and compound microscope to examine plant and cell structure
  • Discuss how form and function relate to the development of an organism
  • Collect, identify and classify different species of plants
  • Discuss natural variation and adaptation
  • Identify the parts of a plant cell, and their function
  • Explain why the structure of the plant cell has profound implications on the developmental processes of the plant
  • Understand that cells differentiate into tissues with specific functions
  • Understand that all cells have the same DNA, and that cell determination is the result of a narrowing field of possible cell fates and is intimately tied up with transcriptional regulation
  • Understand the technology of micro-arrays that allow you to survey a subset of cells and determine which genes are expressed in a given cell
  • Examine various mutant lines of plants, identify what is mutant about them and relate that back to developmental processes
  • Understand that altering gene (s) through mutation can alter the fitness of a plant
  • Describe the shoot apical meristem tissue and the various classes of genes that are involved in determining floral identity
  • Explain how humans have impacted the history of agriculture through selective breeding,mutation and biotechnology.
  • Explain what totipotency and apoptosis is and how these processes effect plant and animal development
  • Explain several key differences in the development of plants from the development of animals as well as highlighting some of the similarities
  • Create three inquiry based lessons focusing on the principles of plant development

Homework Assignment

In order to receive credit for this workshop, the following homework assignments must be completed in full, and turned in within three months of the summer workshop.

    Participants must create three lessons/units utilizing information, activities, and lessons culled from the course content and other outside sources. The curriculum sample must meet the following requirements to receive credit:

  1. Plans must include an introduction that outlines the aims/philosophy behind the creation of the plan. This section must also outline how the plan meets the needs of English learners and students with a variety of learning styles.
  2. The lessons must correspond to at least one written, overall goal and a series of education objectives for each goal.
  3. Possible interdisciplinary components to each lesson should be included if relevant.
  4. Each lesson must have: an estimated time requirement; a material list; educational objectives; a list of CA state educational standards covered; a detailed activity outline; lesson appropriate homework for students; an assessment plan; and a reference list (of source material, and additional reading when appropriate).
  5. Lessons must incorporate the inquiry method of learning/instruction.
  6. While lessons may be pulled from other sources, the format of the lessons should be internally consistent. This may mean editing and re-writing. If the material is pulled from another source, that source must be cited.
  7. Plans should be easy to follow and learning objectives should be clearly stated.
  8. Readers other than the developer should easily understand plans.
  9. Plans are being created so that they may be used. Choose and create only lessons that are likely to be used in the classroom.
  10. The lesson plans will be shared with fellow workshop participants in the follow-up workshop that will occur in the winter. Ideally, this means the lessons will have undergone a trial run in a classroom setting.

    The participants must include a written proposal that outlines when the curriculum plan will be implemented in their own classroom, and how it will fit into the overall classroom curriculum.

    The participants must outline an expenditure plan for their $500.00 grant to implement plants into the classroom. Each participant will arrange a meeting with the program coordinator to review this expenditure plan before any purchases are made.

District Priorities and Participants Teaching Assignment
This course is designed to provide teachers with a better understanding of the development and genetics of plants, and how these differ from animal development. It is designed to encourage teachers to use plants as a basis for inquiry based learning in their classroom. The course will focus on giving teachers the confidence, skills, desire and means to implement plants as an experimental system in their classroom. The content of this course as well as the follow-up workshop, and the homework will focus on science education and will align with state and federal standards in biological sciences for grades 9-12. Both of these goals are highlighted as core subject matter in the No Child Left Behind legislation. The workshop utilizes and models the inquiry method of scientific instruction and scientific exploration with authentic objects, techniques in working with English learners and those with special learning needs.

Course Evaluation
An outside evaluator will be engaged to determine the baseline knowledge of the participant teachers. Ongoing review by the outside evaluator and project staff will determine the level of the teacher comprehension and satisfaction with the program. Project staff’s interaction with teachers will direct subsequent years’ institutes. Interviews with the participants and products generated by classroom students will constitute an early summative report to be utilized for the design of the educational program, and review by the National Science Foundation.
© 2006