Plant Science Bulletin Spring 2021 Volume 67 Number 1
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PLANT SCIENCE BULLETIN SPRING 2021 VOLUME 67 NUMBER 1 A PUBLICATION OF THE BOTANICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA Registration Now Open! IN THIS ISSUE... Botany with Spirit Cornell Rural Teaching a Distance Botany Laboratory.....p. 16 When a Titan Arum Blooms School Leaets and Gardening....p. 4 During Quarantine.... p. 29 From the Editor PLANT SCIENCE BULLETIN Editorial Committee Greetings, Volume 67 Welcome to 2021! As I write this in early March, my institution has just released the rst ocial sign-up for faculty Covid vaccinations. It is exactly one week shy of a year since campus closed in March 2020. Although campus essentially reopened in David Tank July, doing my job is not the same as it was a (2021) year ago. Department of Biological Sciences University of Idaho As I peruse this issue of Plant Science Moscow, ID 83844 Bulletin, it strikes me that the articles share [email protected] a theme. ey discuss how botanists of the past and present have used the technology of the time to share botanical knowledge and inspire others. Although botanists have been participating in and perfecting online teaching and learning for decades, it is fair to say that the pandemic has forced many events James McDaniel that might have otherwise been in-person to (2022) Botany Department virtual platforms. As a community, botanists University of Wisconsin have been able to respond in innovative ways. Madison Just as in the past, botanists have been able to Madison, WI 53706 [email protected] harness the resources available to reach broad audiences. I hope you enjoy these articles and nd them useful. If you have a teaching or outreach experience that was modied due to the pandemic and you would like to share, please reach out to me! Seana K. Walsh (2023) Sincerely, National Tropical Botanical Garden Kalāheo, HI 96741 [email protected] Spring 2021 Volume 67 Number 1 TABLE OF CONTENTS SOCIETY NEWS 2020 A Year in Review ..................................................................................................................................................2 Botany 2021 - Virtual! .....................................................................................................................................................3 SPECIAL FEATURES Botany with Spirit: Cornell Rural School Leaflets and Gardening ........................................................4 Teaching a Distance Botany Laboratory with Online, Outdoor, and Hands-On Exercises ......................................................................................................................................................................16 When a Titan Arum Blooms During Quarantine (aka, Making a Stink Online) ...........................29 SCIENCE EDUCATION Spring 2021 PlantingScience Session Summary ........................................................................................36 STUDENT SECTION Roundup of Student Opportunities ......................................................................................................................39 ANNOUNCEMENTS American Society for Gravitational & Space Research Names Asteroid after Dr. John Kiss ...................................................................................................................................................54 BOOK REVIEWS .................................................................................................................................................54 1 SOCIETY NEWS 2 PSB 67(1) 2021 Botany 2021 Featured Speakers Beronda Montgomery Chris Muir Anita Sil Plenary Address BSA Emerging Leader MSA Karling Address Mario Vallejo-Marin Carolyn Ferguson David Asai Annals of Botany Incoming ASPT President Belonging in Botany Address Michael Donohue Marc Cubeta M. Alejandra Gandolfo-Nixon Incoming BSA President MSA Presidential Address Kaplan Lecture 3 SPECIAL FEATURES Botany with Spirit: Cornell Rural School Leaflets and Gardening Nature-study is not science. the trouble that they seemed to be in. e It is not knowledge. It is not facts. economic depression in the early 1880s It is spirit. resulted in chronic low produce prices It is concerned with the child’s outlook on and increased costs to farmers. As farming the world. communities fought against rising debt, many -L. H. Bailey, 1903 farms were lost and rural migration to cities soon followed. In New York, this migration proved so worrisome that the state formed a In a recent Plant Science Bulletin issue, author Committee for the Promotion of Agriculture. Karen Penders St. Clair (2019) introduced us Anna Comstock was an early committee to several early botany instructors at Cornell member who suggested that Cornell’s University. Several of these instructors, Department of Agriculture develop a nature- namely Liberty H. Bailey, Anna B. Comstock, study program for rural schools (Doris, 2002). Alice G. McCloskey, and John W. Spencer, Comstock and others feared that children and were profoundly important in making teenagers moving to urban areas would soon Cornell University synonymous with that lose touch with nature, and along with it, an of early-1900s nature-study education. One abandonment of their appreciation for the of the factors that helped establish Cornell’s green world. nature-study program was farm kids and In the United States, the idea of studying nature in an outdoor setting did not rst appear at Cornell, but in Chicago, essentially at the same time that the United States was By Karen Wellner struggling with economic depression. Teacher Chandler-Gilbert educators such as John Dewey made the Community College University of Chicago a hub for progressive Email: education. One of Dewey’s ideas that quickly [email protected] took hold in the upper Midwest was the idea of hands-on study and using the outdoors for 4 PSB 67(1) 2021 play and exploration. A colleague of Dewey’s, 1903 by the state’s decision to give large grants Wilbur Jackman, became one of the earliest to Cornell to establish an agriculture college, recognized proponents of nature-study in the along with funds for the hiring of new faculty, early 1890s (Kohlstedt, 2008). Early nature- some of whom advocated for the teaching of study texts by Jackman (1891) and botanist agriculture and nature-study in rural schools. John Merle Coulter (1909), also at the University of Chicago and later president of Under Bailey’s guidance, the agriculture the Botanical Society of America in 1896 and college at Cornell University galvanized 1915, helped establish nature-study education’s nature-study education by gathering roots in Chicago. In addition, the 1894 Report naturalists, agriculturists, and educators of the Committee of Ten on Secondary School together to produce a myriad of teacher Studies and its subcommittee meeting at workshops, student leaets, teacher’s guides, the University of Chicago dealing with the courses for farmers, magazines, handbooks, topic of natural history education saw its and naturalist clubs. It is an understatement 10 members recommend nature-study for to say that the nature-study movement at elementary grade school children. Among Cornell was anything but prolic. the subcommittee members were botanist Charles E. Bessey, BSA’s second president As a technically trained botanist and friend (1895) John M. Coulter, and nature-study of Coulter, Bailey distinguished between advocate Charles B. Scott from the St. Paul nature-study and more systematic work in school system in Minnesota. e committee natural history and biology. Nature-study, members agreed that the primary goal of Bailey argued, would lead not to new truths nature-study was to interest young children but, rather, to a sympathetic attitude toward in nature and to gain knowledge by hands- nature. At the turn of the century, nature- on exploration in the outdoors environment study resonated well with the public audience (National Education Association, 1894). and attracted such supporters as eodore Roosevelt, University of Iowa botanist omas From Chicago, outdoor education spread H. McBride, and, later, the nature writer Aldo across the Midwest and eastern states, most Leopold (Kohlstedt, 2005). notably embraced by two Cornell University faculty members: Bailey, a horticultural science professor who served as the president CORNELL RURAL of BSA in 1926, and Comstock, who in later years was awarded the title of nature SCHOOL LEAFLETS study professor. Unlike teacher programs at Bailey and Comstock so earnestly believed in Chicago and Columbia University, Bailey and nature-study that they expended new energy Comstock’s nature-study program targeted to launch a nature publication intended for rural, rather than urban, school children. is rural school teachers and their students. was mainly due to the fact that Cornell was e Cornell Rural School Leaet (CRSL) was surrounded by farmland, woods, and water— published by Cornell’s College of Agriculture all available resources for the many rural from 1907 to 1959 (Fig. 1). Financed with a school teachers and their students in western New York state grant, one of the conditions New York. ese two educators, along with set by the state was that educational leaets others at Cornell, were aided in 1894 and be distributed only to New York state teachers 5 PSB 67 (1) 2021 e CRSL publications were of two forms: those intended for teachers and shorter leaets for students. Teacher leaets were mailed at the beginning of the school year and provided overviews and suggestions of how to use nature-study with students. e teacher was provided with a