Impacts on Plants & Pollen

As we learned in Module 7: Plants & Pollen, pollination is a crucial process for humans. Our current agricultural system in the U.S. is hugely dependent on our ability to manipulate insect pollination. While many people associate honeybees with crop pollination, the human relationship with pollinators is complex. By one estimate, domesticated honeybees pollinate $14 […]

Plants & Pollen Resources

Nature Explore Education from the National Arbor Day Foundation: A complete research-based program of fun, effective resources to help educators, families, and others working to connect children with nature. Nature Explore Classrooms are being constructed at schools; nature centers; national forests, parks, and wildlife refuges; zoos; arboretums; and child care centers. They are appropriate wherever […]

Plants & Pollen Glossary

Accessory Fruits Achene Aggregate Fruits Alternate Leaf Arrangement Angiosperm Annuals Anther Biennials Bipinnate Leaf Blade Bracts Bryophyte Bulbs Calyx Carnivorous Plant Carpel (Pistil) Catkin Chlorophyll Complete Flower Coniferous Corolla Deciduous Dioecious Diptera Drupe Epiphyte Fibrous Root System Forbs Fruit Gamete Graminoids Herbaceous Heterotroph Hymenoptera Imperfect Flower Inflorescence Internode Lepidoptera Monocots Monoecious Morphology Multiple Fruits Mutualism […]

Extension Activities

There are many opportunities to extend and expand the activities listed in this module. Several examples are listed below. Extension 1 The Great Plant Escape: From the University of Illinois Extension Service, The Great Plant Escape is an elementary plant science program for 4th and 5th grade students. Each of the lessons in this program […]

Vegetation Assessment Activity

This page includes supporting documentation for a vegetation assessment activity: Click here to download the activity Lesson Plan (in .doc format). Click here to download the Cfwep.Org Lesson Plan for conducting a practice vegetation assessment (also includes a practice water quality assessment, in .doc format). Click here to download the Cfwep.Org Plant Guide for Students […]

General Pollination Syndromes

Pollination is a mutualism, or an interaction between two species that is mutually beneficial. The mutualism can be either diffuse, among lots of plant species and lots of pollinator species, or between more specific pairs of species. The floral characteristics of many species of plants allow them to attract general classes of pollinators, rather than […]

Unique Adaptations of Plants

Plants’ ability to adapt quickly to varied and unique circumstances has enabled plants to inhabit some of the most unlikely of habitats and utilize very unique ways of gaining nutrients. In this section, we will discuss several other types of plants. When one thinks of plant locations, soil and water come quickly to mind. However, […]

Community Assembly

Like co-evolution, community formation is also complex and dynamic, resulting in a process known as ecological succession. Succession is the process whereby a site is colonized by plants and develops a successively more mature community over time. Primary succession begins with an area of bare rock being colonized, usually by mosses and/or lichens. As generations of […]

The Hierarchy of Plants

One plant of a given species is an individual. A group of individuals of the same species is a population. A group of populations of different species is a community. A plant community is essentially the basic building block of animal habitat, providing critical resources for survival and reproduction. One type of plant community may […]

Plant Diseases & Pests

Knowing about plant diseases and pests is not necessarily essential to plant community studies, but it will give you more understanding of patterns to look for and other ecological interactions within communities. In the world of plants, anything that has an adverse effect on the health of a plant is considered a disease. There are […]