Below you'll find a list of all posts that have been categorized as “Experiments with Fast Plants”
Why hands-on ecosystem investigations? Ecosystems are highly complex systems; how can we support learners to grasp the affects 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 …
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 …
Teaching and Learning with Fast Plants Investigations We know it is important to “help students make sense of the natural world by designing and carrying out authentic, student driven investigations (Wingert & Bell, 2015).” Compared to other living organisms, Wisconsin Fast Plants are easy to manage and very responsive to factors in their environment. In addition, many easy-to-observe Fast Plant phenotypes …
Wisconsin Fast Plants presents this guest blog as a contribution from a member of our sister program, Bottle Biology. Bottle Biology projects encourage creative ways to grow plants, such as the bottle growing system, to promote science as a tool everyone can use to explore the world. This guest blog is provided by Bottle Biologist Joel Cryer. Thanks Joel! Construction …
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 …
Environment plays a key role in how your Fast Plants grow and develop through their life cycle. Classifying environmental factors into three broad groups can be useful for studying their effects: 1) the physical environment, 2) the chemical environment, 3) the biological environment. This post is part of a series that explains how key environmental factors can impact plants. We focus here on biological factors and Wisconsin Fast Plants. Our website …
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 …
Hairs are not often a trait that we associate with plants. However, of all the traits that students might observe in a population of Fast Plants, we can learn a lot about variation and natural selection by counting and selecting for the number of hairs on a leaf margin. Selective breeding to increase (or decrease) hairiness can provide an excellent opportunity …
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.
