Plants iView - Middle School Science
Teaching a lesson at the Pollinatarium
Plants iView
I led a group of Illinois Plant Biology graduate students in creating middle school plant science curriculum to fit into an afterschool program at Urbana Middle School. As a group we wrote two successful grants to secure funding from the ASPB Educational Foundation Grant and the Illinois Public Engagement Grant for this project. This platform is still in use as a major outreach project for the Illinois Department of Plant Biology. All of the course materials, teacher discussion forum, and student blogs can be accessed through the Plants iView website. We made sure that the lessons met national and Illinois specific educational standards for grades 6-8. The graduate students then taught all the lessons for the program.
Plants iView High-Throughput Phenotyping, Raspberry Pi, Computer Vision
A new module for Plants iView emphasizing quantitative biology and experimental design for 7th graders. Students set up Raspberry Pi Camera rigs to take time-lapse photos of Arabidopsis plants growing in control or drought conditions. Learning the basics of computer vision and plotting students were able to interpret the plant growth data to see if their hypotheses were supported. It was great working with Jennifer Quebedeaux on this module.
