PSB 67(2) 2021
Poetry Corner There are a few things that I particularly enjoy when being a teaching fellow for the class OEB 52 - Biology of Plants at Harvard University: the process of how students gradually became very familiar with the concept of alternation of generations, the moments when they were surprised or impressed by random facts of plants, the times when they tell me how they started to pay more attention to plants around them—and my favorite is when their final creative arts projects were finally revealed. In this class, we require all students to complete a final creative project to illustrate the “rise of sporophyte,” and students have their full artistic freedom to create a project in any form and format. This is definitely the highlight of the class every year, and we were blown away by their creativity every single time. We got submissions in songwriting, song adaptations, interpretive dances, yoga lessons, drawings (watercolor, pencil, vector art, pixel art, sand art—just to name a few), clay art, stop motion videos, time-lapse videos, song playlists, children’s books, games (e.g., broad games, online video games), recipe books and menus, magazines, embroidery, puzzles, essays, poems, and more. A video trailer about the creative projects of the class was made in 2017 and can be found here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1EKsgJ_8PEZIVX8-A5dyj1YLaI23BEm4V/ view?usp=sharing. This year, one of my students, Jude Okonkwo, composed a beautiful poem for his final project, and I was particularly touched by it. I encouraged him to publish it in the Plant Science Bulletin because I felt this poem can touch many botanists’ hearts and inspire more people to express the love and thoughts for botany with arts and literature. Enjoy! --Min Ya, Harvard University
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