Plant Unit Philosophy
As I embarked on planning this unit, I was guided by two primary personal goals. The first goal was to cover the required material in a way that would make students likely to master it in a short period of time. This unit, like most of the units throughout the semester, would last approximately one-and-a-half weeks. I had observed over the course of the semester that moving so quickly through new material tended to frustrate many students, as they found it hard to keep up with the course pace. Our classes were plagued by frequent absences, which presented a huge challenge, since missing even a single class could leave a student far behind schedule. Thus, I wanted to find a way to cover the required material without overwhelming the students.
My second goal was to make plants interesting and relevant to students. Plant biology is an area that most students know little about. This is contrary to animals, which seem to have immediate appeal, likely because they move and people begin learning about them from a young age (through interactions with pets, bugs, Animal Planet TV shows). Of course, people also regularly interact with plants, but these interactions are generally less dramatic. Thus, in teaching this unit, I tried to integrate many hands-on activities that would get students investigating actual examples of plants and thinking about the ways that humans interact with them. It was my hope that in making plants more interesting to students, they would gain a deeper understanding of the facts and concepts that I was teaching.