One of the keys to successfully teaching with Fast Plants is knowing how to thin and tend Fast Plants so they have enough space, light, water, and nutrients to thrive. Fast Plants grow very quickly, and if you do not provide adequate light, maintain consistent moisture levels and thin the young seedlilngs they can fail to thrive. This can result …
Student-centered Inheritance Investigation: Hands-on & High-rigor Inheritance and patterns of heredity are central to middle and high school science standards, but they can be hard for students to understand without chances to talk through evidence together. While case studies and pedigrees can introduce key ideas, students develop deeper understanding when they collect data, compare observations, and make sense of results as …
Timing Fast Plants Lessons Effectively: How Strategic Planting Dates Help Students Witness Every “Aha!” Moment Timing Fast Plants lessons effectively is one of the simplest ways to elevate student learning with Wisconsin Fast Plants®. Because these plants move through their life cycle so quickly, when you plant matters! By choosing a planting start date that aligns with your instructional goals, …
Growing healthy Fast Plants is easy if you understand how the environment can affect growth and development. Three broad categories of environmental factors influence how an individual plant matures through its life cycle: 1) the physical environment, 2) the chemical environment, 3) the biological environment. This post is part of a series explaining how key chemical environmental factors can impact plants, Wisconsin Fast Plants in particular. Our website describes …
Growing healthy Fast Plants is easy if you understand how the environment can affect growth and development. Three broad categories of environmental factors influence how an individual plant matures through its life cycle: 1) the physical environment, 2) the chemical environment, 3) the biological environment. This post is part of a series explaining how key environmental factors–physical, chemical, and biological–can impact plants, Wisconsin Fast Plants in particular. Our …
Fast Plants in Space: Next Steps with Amanda Nguyen & Emily Calandrelli Long-term space exploration depends on many factors, and plant research in space is one of the most pressing. For decades, Wisconsin Fast Plants have helped scientists and educators explore biological mysteries, and now, they’ve returned to orbit, contributing to plant research in space. Blue Origin’s Fall 2024 mission …
What if you got to put a Fast Plant Space Experiment on a rocket? What questions would you ask, and how would you design your experiment? We got that very opportunity when Emily Calandrelli, The Space Gal, offered us the chance to send seeds and experiments into orbit with her aboard Blue Origin’s NS-28 Mission. We also recently worked with …
Wisconsin Fast Plants® of the Department of Plant Pathology at UW-Madison are helping scientists explore how plants can thrive beyond Earth, and they’re paving the way for future space farming and sustainable life support systems in space. In fact, if you follow on Instagram #fastplantsinspace (@fastplants) we’ll be sharing about Fast Plants in flight on Blue Origin with Emily Calandrelli …
Future Depends on Plant Systems careers In the ever-evolving landscape of agriculture and plant sciences, the need for hands-on experiences growing plants has never been more critical. Career Technical Education (CTE) courses in the Plant Systems Pathway are foundational for future professionals in a wide variety of plant science fields, and one valuable addition that stands out is the incorporation …
It’s the season of professional development conferences for teachers, educators, and our Fast Plants Team! Come visit our booths in the exhibit halls, they’re always packed with living Fast Plants, recommended resources, and good conversation. Jackson is attending NABT in Baltimore; Hedi and Dan are attending CAST in Houston and ACTE in Phoenix! This blog post summarizes what you’ll find …
Are you just deciding where to start to teach inheritance patterns with Fast Plants? Or maybe you’ve used Fast Plants before and are ready to add complexity to your inheritance investigations. Because we have so many resources available, choosing where to start can be a bit daunting. So, in this post we guide you through the decision making process and link to …
Producing Fast Plants seed for investigations that need offspring generations Seed harvest is an essential step in any Fast Plants experimental design that involves gathering evidence from offspring plants that students produce themselves. For example, you may have students conduct an inheritance investigation in which they inter-mate Fast Plants from an F1 generation to produce and observe the F2 offspring. …
Superior Grow Lights: Easy build your own What grow lights do I need for growing Fast Plants? That’s an important question. However, it also may be the start of a missed learning opportunity, if we’re not mindful. Consider for comparison your reaction when a student asks: “What do I need to know for the test?” Likely, your response includes hoping this …
Why hands-on ecosystem investigations? Ecosystems are highly complex systems; how can we support learners to grasp the effects on populations when one component of an ecosystem changes? Using a model ecosystem and model population in a hands-on investigation is an effective teaching strategy. In addition to making abstract ecosystem concepts more concrete, using Fast Plants as a model organism in …
Polycot seedlings are easy to distinguish just a few days after germination! Our new Polycots seed line of Fast Plants features a trait that students can easily see at the seedling stage. In addition, we’ve developed a procedure for producing parental (Generation 1) and offspring (Generation 2) Polycot seed stocks, so it is not necessary for students to produce their own …
Preservice teacher learners become effective teachers of science by developing strong content and content pedagogy knowledge that support all learners. In other words, the learning arc for preservice teacher learners is multilayered and jam-packed! So, it’s a tall order to hope that future teachers of science–elementary and secondary–are the solution to our national epidemic of plant blindness. “Plant blindness” may …
While occupied by hands-on Fast Plants tending tasks in my role as co-director of the Wisconsin Fast Plants Program, I often listen to podcasts. Spoiler alert: I love podcasts about plants! No surprise, one of my favorites is Matt Candeias’ podcast, In Defense of Plants. Beyond my fascination with the wide array of topics Matt dives into in his podcasts, I appreciate …
Growing plants inspires everything from a solid appreciation for plants to a lifelong passion. Equally important to inspiration, growing plants can be key to developing citizens literate about our dependence on plants for life. With this in mind, we share here Daniel Murphy’s firsthand account of his experiences growing plants and becoming–in his words–“a bona fide plant nerd.” Daniel publishes a weekly blog titled, Awkward Botany, sharing his …
Classroom teacher, Julie LaConte, tells about her first experience teaching with Fast Plants in this guest post. Thank you, Julie, for sharing your insights and experiences! Fall 2019 was my first experience teaching with Fast Plants, and plants are one of my least favorite topics to teach. After 18 years as an upper elementary and middle school science teacher, I have had my fair share …
Two Wisconsin Fast Plants® simulation Gizmos® were created as a collaboration between ExploreLearning and the Wisconsin Fast Plants Program. These simulations were designed to support a variety of investigations and growing Fast Plants. AND they replace the simulations created nearly two decades ago that can no longer function on modern operating systems! Simulations complement physically growing Fast Plants Using these Gizmos during or after growing Fast Plants, …
Wisconsin Fast Plants were developed as research tool at the University of Wisconsin – Madison and have been used by K-16 teachers around the world for nearly 30 years as an educational model-organism.
