A couple of years ago I spent a lovely afternoon in the huge domed glasshouses of Singapore's "Gardens on the Bay". The 'cloud forest' was my favourite – both for the concept & for the wonderful range of epiphytes on show there. So you'll understand that I enjoyed reading about it again on this blog, […]
Continue readingTag: plant structure
teaching plant life cycles – trying a different approach
For whatever reason, I find that many students seem to struggle when it comes to learning about plant life cycles. The whole sporophyte/gametophyte, meiosis/mitosis thing really gets them – & that’s even before we start looking at how the life cycle is modified in different groups of plants. Yes, the textbook has lots of diagrams […]
Continue readingan entertaining take on plants & plant cells
The new semester kicks off tomorrow & right now I'm adding resources to my first-year bio moodle page & running through the powerpoints for the week's lectures. After a couple of introductory sessions we're diving into the section of the class that focuses on plants, and I'm giving some serious thought to how I present […]
Continue readingpresenting on plants at WCeLfest
For the last few years our Centre for e-Learning has run WCeLfest – a day of presentations & discussion around using various technology tools to enhance teaching & learning. I always find these sessions very valuable as there are a lot of people doing some really interesting things in their classrooms, & there's always something […]
Continue readingmoss s*x and springtails
Sexual reproduction in flowering plants is often mediated by the birds & the bees (& other animal agents), but up until now the life cycle has appeared much simpler in plants like the mosses. Until fairly recently it was generally accepted that moss sex was a case of ‘just add water’: this released sperm from […]
Continue readingfirst supertrees – now super domes
After goggling (a mixture of gobsmacked & ogling) the supertrees, our little party of escapees from the day’s official IBO program made our way into the Flower Dome, the first of the two great conservatories in Singapore’s Gardens in the Bay. Cue more ‘oh, wow!’ moments as the scale of the building became apparent – […]
Continue readingin the lecture theatre – but definitely not giving a lecture!
This is a post I first wrote for Talking Teaching – but hey! it’s about teaching science! Today’s class was a real experiment for me, & although I try lots of different things in my classes, it was also a step outside my normal comfort zone. (But hey! life would be a bit boring if […]
Continue readingskulls & braaiiinz – what’s not to like? (also, plants)
The intrepid reporters from Number 8 Network e-mailed the other day. "What are you reading?" they asked; "after all, it’s the holidays & you must have heaps of time to put your nose in a book." Which is sort of right, it is the Christmas/New Year break, but the days just seem to fly by […]
Continue readingbiological oddities, including the naughty bits
Last night I gave a talk up in Auckland, on various biological oddities (mostly from the animal kingdom and, all right, mostly to do with s*x). You can slip a lot of serious science in once the audience’s attention has been captured by the naughty bits! (I would hate folks to think that biologists are […]
Continue readingpesky little hoppers
With the new house came a long drive lined with agapanthus. My mother would have said, "the dreaded agapanthus", & she wouldn’t have been far wrong. I don’t like the things very much; they spread very vigorously & I tend to view them as a weed. (I see from Te Ara that Biosecurity New Zealand was […]
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