“Greenseedling.com believes that plant science is for everyone, and in the effort to support awareness and appreciation of plant biology in K through 12 classrooms, provides resources to educators. Acknowledging that students, and often their teachers, find that plant science can feel overwhelmingly broad (and even boring) in the classroom, the goal of the Teacher Resources page is to help teachers find fun and creative ideas to implement in their curriculum that will encourage excitement and inquiry for teacher and pupil alike.”

Here you will find K-12 Teaching Resources for Plant Biology. These were compiled by Laura Sanders, a student in the UTeach Program at the University of Texas – Austin, during a semester internship at greenseedling.com. After careful consideration of standardized testing requirements, the need for hands-on activities and exploration, as well as creative critical thinking exercises, Laura assembled these resources into three broad testing topics: Structure and Function, Environment and Ecology, Energy and Photosynthesis for students K-12. (For a full description of the project, you may download Laura’s project report here.)

The Teaching Resources may be found on the right side of the website. Below are additional online resources.

Teachers: Got an activity or exploration of your own you’d like to contribute? We would be happy to work with you. Email us at greenseedling[at]gmail.com

Additional Online Resources

12 Principles of Plant Biology – The American Society of Plant Biologists (ASPB) has put together a collection of twelve concepts to help students better understand the principles of plant science. (Level K-12)

12 Inquiry-based activities for the 12 principles of plant biology[NEW] Great activities appropriate for grades 6-12.  Created by winners of the ASPB Education Foundation Grant Awards Program (GAP).

Teaching Tools in Plant Biology[NEW] Teaching tools created to coordinate with the journal Plant Cell.  Check out the compelling  Why Study Plants? Appropriate for the general audience and first year university students with no prior plant biology knowledge.  Also check out the  PlantTeachingTools’s Channel on YouTube!

American Society of Plant Biologists (ASPB) Educational Resources
A great list of resources for K-12, undergraduate, graduate and faculty.

Science News for Kids
From the publishers of Science News, a new website devoted to science news for kids ages 9 to 14.

Liberty Science Center “Touch Me, Feel Me Science”
A New York Times story on how the New Jersey “Liberty Science Center” re-invented the science museum.

Incredible 3D animation of the inner workings of a living cell.
Created for Harvard biology students using NewTek LightWave 3D and Adobe After Effects.

Plant Atlas
Images of plant tissues compiled over the years by three Biology professors from University of Wisconsin and Iowa State.

Amazing timelapse videos of plant movements illustrating concepts such as nutation, circaidian rhythms, and phototropism. Really cool!

Books and articles by David Hershey on teaching plant biology

• such as: Avoiding misconceptions when teaching about plants
• Plant Biology Science Projects (for age 12 and older)

Virtual Library of Plant Sciences

List of Outreach Programs
A helpful listing of community outreach programs for science education compiled on The Arabidopsis Information Resource page, or TAIR.

• PREP website: the Partnership for Research and Education in Plants. A program to foster collaboration between plant research scientists and high school students and educators to further public education in science.