Curriculum Map

Botany

Author:
Mohannad Al-Saghir, Associate Professor, Ohio University, Zanesville, Ohio

This Curriculum Map provides a list of highly relevant and engaging content from throughout AccessScience for use in enriching your teaching. Site assets such as tables, graphs, diagrams, photos, and animations have been mapped to standard topics taught in an introductory Botany course. Use the "Copy Link" functionality to paste a direct link from each asset into your school's learning management system for easy incorporation into your curriculum.

Course Topics


Plant Structure
Asset Description
Diagram This schematic drawing of a plant, from the article on plant growth, can be used to introduce students to the key external anatomical structures involved with plant growth. copy link
Diagram This diagram of a root apical meristem, from the article of the same name, also illustrates tissue differentiation and shows the products of each meristematic region. copy link
Diagram This figure of primary plant tissue systems, from the article of the same name, shows longitudinal and cross sections of a shoot and a root. You can have students use the diagrams to compare and contrast these structures. copy link
Diagram This cross section of a typical dicotyledon stem, from the article on plant tissue systems, shows secondary tissues that arise from lateral meristems. It's a good way to familiarize students with wood and bark structures in woody dicot stems. copy link
Biography The English clergyman Stephen Hales researched the physiology and growth of plants in the eighteenth century.Hales worked on vines in full leaf, showing that pressure exerted by water in the transpiration stream is greatest when the plant is illuminated.
 copy link
Animation This short and upbeat video answers the question, why do leaves change color? It's a great way to introduce students to chlorophyll-containing structures.
 copy link
Plant Reproduction
Asset Description
Diagram This diagram, from the article on plant reproduction, illustrates sexual reproduction by flowering plants. copy link
Animation For students needing a review of sexual and asexual reproduction, this animation elegantly compares the two types of cell division: meiosis and mitosis. Although the animation depicts animal cells, similar processes occur in plant cells, the main differences being that centrioles and spindle fibers do not appear in plant cells as they do in animal cells; and animal cells form a cleavage furrow while plant cells eventually build a cell wall between the two daughter cells. copy link
Animation This animation focuses on the phases of meiosis. Be sure to point out the differences between plant cells and animal cells during meiosis, as mentioned in the description above. copy link
Diagram This full-color life cycle diagram of an angiosperm, from the article on plant reproduction, visually summarize the complexity of the angiosperm life cycle, including parallel meiosis and double fertilization. copy link
Biography This biography summarizes the work of the German botanist Carl Franz Joseph Erich Correns, who, after Mendel and preceding Morgan, concentrated on plant genetics. Correns was the first to obtain evidence of differential fertilization between gametes.
 copy link
Seeds
Asset Description
Image This image from the Seed article shows the main structures in eudicot and monocot seeds, along with photos of their germination. copy link
Photographs The main structures of seeds are emphasized in these photographs from the Seed article. copy link
Diagram During seed germination, the embryo emerges through the covering tissues, including the testa and endosperm, This diagram, from the Seed germination article, shows these structures in monocot and dicot seeds.
 copy link
Photograph This image from the Seed article is a longitudinal section of a mature dicotyledon seed, showing the embryo surrounded by copious endosperm. copy link
Photograph This photograph from the Dormancy article demonstrates viviparous generation due to a mutation preventing abscisic acid synthesis.
 copy link
Diagram This schematic illustration from the Seed germination article shows the postgermination process by which germinated seeds use amylase to digest starch and produce glucose.
 copy link
Plant Evolution
Asset Description
Diagram For students needing a review of phylogenetic trees, these cladograms from the Phylogeny article will come in handy. One shows a general hierarchy of relationships among a group of taxa, while the other exemplifies the identification of derived characteristics. copy link
Diagram This more substantive cladogram, from the Plant phylogeny article, depicts the major groups of plants, while showing their history of diversification from a common ancestor. copy link
Diagram This illustrated cladogram from the Plant evolution article depicts inferred evolutionary relationships of major groups of plants, including some of their most important evolutionary innovations, and their distribution in geologic time.
 copy link
Diagram This diagram from the Plant phylogeny article is useful in discussing the origin of plants from prokaryotic endosymbionts. copy link
Plant Taxonomy
Asset Description
Article Section This section of the Plant taxonomy article presents a brief history of plant classification, beginning with early Greek philosophers, such as Aristotle, to Linnaeus's system of binomial nomenclature. copy link
Biography As this biography attests, the most important contribution of Swedish botanist Carolus Linnaeus was to introduce the binomial system of nomenclature. Prior to that, however, Linnaeus developed a system for classifying plants according to the number of stamens and pistils in flowers. copy link
Diagram Linnaeus's early system of plant classification by sexual organs is beautifully illustrated in this reprint from his classic work, Systema naturae, published in a Research Review on Angiosperm Phylogeny Group classification.
 copy link
Biography A century after Linnaeus's work, the English botanist Joseph Dalton Hooker made additional contributions to botanical taxonomy, including many scientific works based on his research on Indian flora. copy link
Animation This animation, entitled Three Domains, shows how comparisons of ribosomal RNA have separated the three modern taxonomic groupings of Bacteria, Archaea, and Eukarya. Point out the branch of plant origins within the Eukarya, and have students pay special attention to this group while watching the animation, especially with regard to cells. copy link
Plant Photosynthesis
Asset Description
Diagram A solid understanding of photosynthesis must include familiarity with chloroplast structure and function. This simplified diagram from the Photosynthesis article shows a typical chloroplast, with arrows indicating the individual processes that take place. copy link
Biography The English biochemist Robert Hill contributed greatly to modern knowledge of photosynthesis through his elegant experiments with the light reactions that take place in chloroplasts. copy link
Animation This animation visually explains both the structure and function of chloroplasts, particularly with regard to the electron transport chain that generates ATP. copy link
Diagram This schematic outline of the C3 cycle, from the Photosynthesis article, shows the essential events of this type of photosynthesis, including carboxylation, reduction, and regeneration. copy link
Diagram The Photosynthesis article also includes this schematic outline of the C4 cycle in two plant-cell types. Have students compare and contrast this CO2-assimilation process with the one for C3 photosynthesis (see above). copy link
Flowers
Asset Description
Diagram This diagram from the Flower article shows and labels the basic structures of a typical flower in median longitudinal section.
 copy link
Article Section This brief section of the Plant organs article describes the structures and functions of flower parts. It can be read in conjunction with the diagram described above.
 copy link
Diagram This diagram from the Flower article illustrates successive stages of flower formation in a wood sorrel.
 copy link
Diagram Seen from the standpoint of alternation of generations, one of the unifying themes of botany, an embryo sac is the megagametophyte of the angiosperms; a pollen tube with its contents is the microgametophyte. This diagram from the Flower article illustrates both.
 copy link
Diagram This illustration of a sunflower, also from the Flower article, is ideal for discussing inflorescence structure.
 copy link
Forensic Botany
Asset Description
Photograph This photomicrograph from the article on forensic science shows what various fibers, including botanical materials, might look like to an investigator on a case. Point out that these and other pieces of trace evidence may be transferred between two objects that come into contact with each other.
 copy link
Photographs Pollen and spore production and dispersion are important considerations in the study of forensic palynology. These five images show various botanical pollen grains at high resolution.
 copy link
Photograph These micrographs from the Forensic botany article serve to illustrate how it is possible to identify the plants consumed in a person's last meal. copy link
Article Section This section of the Forensic mycology article presents two case studies in which growth characteristics of fungal sporophores and lichens provided temporal information about a crime scene.
 copy link