[PCA] CALL: Plant Sciences Education Call for Abstracts (Life Sciences Education)

[Kwong, Olivia]

For those of you involved in native plant education.

http://ascb.org/LSE/LSEplantsciencesissue_callformanuscripts.pdf

The plant sciences present a uniquely flexible, accessible, scalable, and
compelling context for active investigation by students. Plants are
inexpensive enough to grow in the scale required in classrooms and hardy
enough for student caretakers, while avoiding the ethical and safety
constraints and much of the expense inherent in animal and microbial
systems. The plant sciences also present an opportunity to engage the
public in understanding the “New Biology” as described in the National
Research Council report “A New Biology for the 21st Century: Ensuring the
United States Leads the Coming Biology evolution,” in particular:

   - How scientific and technological developments are generating food
   plants able to acclimate and grow sustainably in changing environments,
   - How ecosystems can function and be sustained in changing environments,
   - How scientific and technology developments are generating sustainable
   alternatives to fossil fuels, and
   - How discoveries in plants have led to discoveries that improve human
   health and wellbeing.

While many in the K-12 community utilize plants to engage students in
scientific practices, research has demonstrated that plant science concepts
and competencies are either minimized or entirely absent from undergraduate
biology teaching. This perpetuates the idea that plants don’t do much, are
only important for photosynthesis, and are not interesting to study.

To begin to address this deficit, CBE—Life Sciences Education (LSE;
http://www.lifescied.org/) will publish a special issue devoted to Plant
Sciences Education. Authors are encouraged to submit research articles
and essays on these and other areas of interest in plant science education:

   - Research on how students think and learn about biological processes
   unique to plants,
   - Studies of the implementation of plant science curricula that
   demonstrate their effectiveness in helping students master important
   biological concepts,
   - Evaluation of curricular or programmatic innovations that are
   evidence-driven and contribute to the national discussion about learning in
   the plant sciences, and
   - Study of faculty professional development that promotes evidence-based
   plant science instruction.

Manuscripts are welcomed that describe qualitative, quantitative,
theoretical, or evaluative studies of plant science teaching and learning,
as well as plant science instruction in K-12, undergraduate, graduate,
and informal contexts.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.plantconservation.org/pipermail/native-plants_lists.plantconservation.org/attachments/20130719/5a19b07d/attachment.html>