Plant Science Bulletin 59(3) 2013 associated activity kit when presenting information about plants. The teachers are taking their own initiative to fill gaps in their content knowledge and to find additional resources to use when teaching about plants. In particular they are linking reading activities to student learning about plants, although they may be doing this as a result of mandated state curriculum testing. Despite logistical obstacles to growing plants in the classroom, the teachers do bring plants into the classroom and at a minimum expose students to the excitement of germinating a seed and watching it grow. The teachers in this study are making a concerted effort to get students excited about plants. However, several concerns regarding teaching about plants also arose from this study. Almost all the teachers are presenting information about plants with no recollection of any training specific to plants during their preservice education. Several of the teachers were not concerned about their lack of botanical training because they mentioned that it is easy to read a few books and pick up the content. This could imply that the plant content they are teaching is not very in-depth; the redundant activities the teachers mentioned seem to support this speculation. There was also little evidence from the interviews of any instructional objectives beyond plant parts or growth, which is also consistent with the findings of Schussler et al. (2010) that the science textbooks used in this district limited botanical content mainly to the topic of plant parts, in contrast to animal content that extended to animal adaptations, needs, and diversity. Taken together, these results might suggest that although teachers are supplementing text information, they are not adding instruction that goes far beyond the textbook. Further studies are needed, however, regarding actual classroom instructional practices, student learning, and effects of professional development and classroom experience on instruction before broader conclusions can be made. Many teachers mentioned that they integrate science trade books into their lessons about plants. Integration of trade books into science lessons was promoted because state testing focused on reading and not science in the year this study was conducted (J. Winslow, personal communication; Marx and Harris, 2006). Although teachers were excited about the availability of the science trade books for their botany lessons, several found it challenging to judge a book’s quality; as expressed by Martha, “I don’t feel comfortable knowing, um, what’s a good science trade book and what’s not. At this point, anything is better than nothing.” A study identifying many incomplete and unexplained representations of plant life cycles in the science
trade books available at the same local library serving this school district (Schussler, 2008; also see Hershey, 1996) suggests, however, that these books are not a panacea for classroom botany instruction. Teachers need enough knowledge about plants to identify and supplement incorrect information in the books, but it is unknown if teachers in this district recognized this issue. One role botanists can play in school instruction is to help teachers identify appropriate and inappropriate science trade books about plants, and provide supplemental information as needed. Teachers reported that students are most excited when they get to grow plants in the classroom. However, the interviews suggest that most of their germination experiences are with bean seeds. Since students quickly lose interest in plants, it seems prudent to find new classroom plants for teachers to use (e.g., Amaryllis or Chia plants; Hershey, 2002; Conover, 2011). Diversity in available plants could help to maintain student excitement and prevent them from knowing what will happen (as several teachers reported hearing from the students). It also can be inferred from the interviews that students rarely get an opportunity to grow a plant through its entire life cycle. Teachers reported that a new program using Wisconsin Fast Plants®, introduced in the schools the year of these interviews, was very successful because the plants changed quickly enough to keep students’ attention and they got to see the flowers and fruits in a relatively short time period (Schussler and Winslow, 2007). When asked what they would like to have available to teach about plants, teachers overwhelmingly focused on things that would help in teaching about cultivated plants: greenhouses and gardens. Given that at least two of the three schools had associated school natural areas, it seems clear that teachers want a diversity of plants available to them, but they prefer to work with plants in a controlled environment (greenhouse or garden) rather than utilizing nature. Several researchers have previously reported on perceived barriers to outdoor learning, including lack of natural areas to use, health and safety concerns, attitudes, weather, time constraints, and acceptable child-to-adult ratios, among others (Dillon et al., 2006; Waite, 2010, 2011; Passy, 2012; Carrier, Tugurian, and Thomson, 2013). It also seems that the teachers in this study take a product-centered approach to teaching about plants, with the focus being on how plants are useful to humans rather than on how
107