Outreach

ABRC is reaching out to the educational community to enhance the awareness and visibility of plants in grades K-12. The Center is creating partnerships with educational organizations and making our extensive experience and Arabidopsis resources more easily available to teachers and students. Many high school science classes around the country have already started to use Arabidopsis in their curricula as a way to introduce basic concepts in plant biology, development and genetics.

Our “Greening the Classroom” initiative is composed of a series of hands-on activities, illustrating biological concepts and processes like inheritance, development and response to environmental conditions. Teaching materials for this program are available through our Education website. We also distribute education materials developed by other researchers and educators, which can be used for undergraduate classes. At the local level, we have partnered with the Columbus City School District to bring the “Greening the Classroom” program to classrooms as part of the middle and high school curriculum.

A recent grant from the American Society of Plant Biologists (ASPB) funds “TRAINED: Translating Research on Arabidopsis into a Network of EDucational resources" - a central hub for linking, searching and ordering Arabidopsis educational resources, and integrating K-12 and undergraduate education initiatives.