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Make Description using a form | Automatic Field Guide
The School Flora Project is building a database of plant descriptions that have been created by teachers and students who are participating in our program. The process of identifying the plants, finding more information about them and then creating an online descriptions is an interesting addition to the curriculum. At the same time, students can have the satisfaction of knowing they are contributing to the OpenKey project.
Creating plant descriptions is a great way for students to learn about the plants of Illinois, especially if they can get outside the classroom and encounter the plants first hand. They will learn about botany by understanding the terminology for the different structures in plants. But it also can provide a springboard to other topics such as ecology (plant succession, nutrient cycles, morphology), evolution (why do the plants look they way they do?), history and even anthropology. After identifying your plants you can create online plant descriptions and contribute to the growing School Flora Database in two ways. Either create your own web page with our template or use our online form to fill in information about your plant descriptions. See our help page for more information on how to do this. Please see the contact information below if you are intested in participating with your class.
If you are looking for ways to make your activities more inquiry-driven, you might try this resource. You can use the online template to help build your lesson plans and activities. At the same time you can index your documents so that others can also share your ideas and even build on them. If you come up with good activities that incorporate OpenKey plant descriptions, we strongly encourage you to contribute your ideas to the Inquiry Page.
Life on the Prairie in one of the Partner Projects that is incorporating School Flora activities into their program.
This is a form created by Marylin Lisowski that you can use to evaluate the usability of your online plant descriptions. (pdf)
P. Bryan Heidorn
(217)244-7792 voice, (217) 244-3302 fax
http://alexia.lis.uiuc.edu/~heidorn