DC Teachers’ Night at the U.S. Botanic Garden: An Evening Filled with Plant-astic ASPB Outreach Activities

On September 22, ASPB participated in an evening of outreach at the United States Botanical Garden in Washington, D.C., as an exhibitor at the annual D.C. Teachers’ Night hosted by USBG and the District of Columbia Environmental Education Consortium. The evening features dozens of exhibitors with hands-on activities, lesson plans, and resources for K-12 teachers … Read more

NIFA Listens: Investing in Science to Transform Lives

USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture Needs Stakeholder Input on Food, Agriculture Priorities The National Institute of Food and Agriculture is accepting input from stakeholders regarding research, extension, and education priorities in food and agriculture. A series of four in-person listening sessions hosted in different regions across the country and submission of written comments … Read more

President’s Letter: Where Do We Go from Here?

A research community thrives best when it acts with a consensus voice and agrees to commonly held priorities. An effort to achieve such consensus within the plant science community was first launched with the 2013 publication of the document Unleashing a Decade of Innovation in Plant Science: A Vision for 2015–2025 (http://bit.ly/DecadalVision). The Decadal Vision … Read more

Announcing the Inaugural Class of the ASPB Conviron Scholars Program

Congratulations to the inaugural class of the ASPB Conviron Scholars Program.  These 21 scholars were selected from a strongly competitive group of over 150 applicants.  Read more about each awardee. Special thanks to Conviron for making this program possible through their financial support. Mary Modupe Adewole, University of Ibadan, Osun State, Nigeria Beverly Agtuca, University of … Read more

Scientists Urgently Needed to Mentor Students Online

PlantingScience.org is seeking scientists (undergraduates through retired/emeritus) willing to mentor middle and high school students this fall (Sept – Nov). We expect over 1000 student teams and we don’t have enough mentors to work with them all! Mentors work online with 1-3 teams of students to help them design and carry out investigations on a … Read more

Recognizing featured Plant Cell first authors, July 2017

Elizabeth Henry, featured first author of Direct and Indirect Visualization of Bacterial Effector Delivery into Diverse Plant Cell Types During Infection Current Position: Postdoctoral Scholar, Discovery and Project Support in Crop Efficiency and Seed Growth, Biologics R&D at Bayer Crop Science. Education: PhD (2016) Plant Pathology, University of California at Davis. BS (2008) Botany, University … Read more

SURFing at the Undergraduate Poster Session in Honolulu

Plant Biology 2017 welcomed students in Honolulu with an exclusive undergraduate poster session. Among those undergraduates represented, I had the pleasure of meeting many talented young researchers at the poster session, and was able to chat in depth with 14 of the ASPB Summer Undergraduate Research Fellow (SURF) awardees at both the undergraduate poster session … Read more

The ASPB Education Booth: A BLOOMEing Good Time

At Plant Biology 2017, the Biology Learning Objectives, Outreach Materials & Education (BLOOME) awards were the focus of the Education Booth.  These grants are awarded on a competitive basis to fund innovative ideas to increase education and outreach projects focusing on plant science literacy. Four previous award winners came to Hawaii to share the products of … Read more

Education and Outreach at Plant Biology 2017

Can art be used to teach elementary students that plants respond to environmental cues? How can museums make learning about plant evolution more fun? Does writing and editing Wikipedia articles increase student engagement in science writing? How can teachers use schoolyard woodlands to teach students about diversity? Can citizen science be used to demonstrate that … Read more

Plant Biology 2017 – Education Workshop Does Big Data

Big data, computation and bioinformatics have flooded the research community.  At Plant Biology 2017, it flooded the classroom as well. The education workshop, “ABC’s (Analysis, Bioinformatics and Computation) in the Classroom,” featured integration of computation and analysis of biological data into the classroom. Dr. Katerina Thompson, University of Maryland, and Dr. Judy Brusslan, California State … Read more

GMOs! (Science IRL S3 Ep6)

How are genetically modified organisms (GMOs) made? Are they safe to eat? Follow along with Molly Edwards, the creator of Science In Real Life (IRL), as she heads to the Van Eck Lab at the Boyce Thompson Institute and demystifies GMOs by showing how they’re made in the lab and discussing their safety to consumers. Molly is a recipient … Read more

My experiences as a PlantingScience mentor

PlantingScience is an online mentoring program that virtually connects scientists with junior high or high school students as they participate in inquiry-based activities with plants. Mentors commit to an hour or so per week over roughly two to four weeks, during which they respond to student questions and help them design and interpret their experiments. … Read more

ASPB Education Committee Outreach at the Arabidopsis Meetings in St. Louis

The ASPB Education Committee hosted an outreach booth at the International Conference on Arabidopsis Research (ICAR) held June 19-22 in St Louis, MO. Many ASPB members might recall that ICAR has, since the 2011 event in Madison, WI, “gone global” and the 2017 event marked the first time ICAR returned to the United States; the … Read more

Recognizing featured Plant Cell first authors, June 2017

Guotian Li, Rashmi Jain, and Mawsheng Chern, featured first authors of The Sequences of 1504 Mutants in the Model Rice Variety Kitaake Facilitate Rapid Functional Genomic Studies Guotian Li Current Position: Deputy Director of Grass Genetics/Project Scientist at the Joint BioEnergy Institute, a joint position between Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the University of California, … Read more

Appropriations Update: Senate Appropriations Committee Approves FY 2018 Energy and Water Development Appropriations Bill with Bipartisan Support

Last week, the Senate Appropriations Committee approved the fiscal year (FY) 2018 Energy and Water Development appropriations bill with a bipartisan vote of 30-1.  The Senate bill would provide $31.5 billion for the Department of Energy (DOE), an increase of $718 million, or 2.3 percent, above the FY 2017 enacted level.  This level of funding … Read more

Join the 2017-2018 PlantingScience Master Plant Science Team

Are you a graduate student or post-doctoral researcher interested in a chance to get involved and trained in K-12 outreach?  Would you like to mentor student research teams, without ever leaving your desk?  Do you have the time to commit to mentor 2-3 teams in BOTH the Fall and Spring PlantingScience Sessions?  ASPB invites its members to join … Read more

PlantingScience Professional Development Workshop Strengthens Classroom + Early Career Scientist Connections

In July 2017, PlantingScience hosted a professional development workshop at the Biological Sciences Curriculum Study (BSCS) in Colorado Springs, CO as part of the PlantingScience: Digging Deeper Together grant funded by NSF and lead by efforts from BSCS, BSA, and ASPB. The workshop included 24 high school teachers from around the country with 12 plant … Read more

ASPB / Conviron Scholars program: Supporting Students in Plant Science

On June 24, 2017 ASPB began accepting applications for the ASPB Conviron Scholars Program. The year-long program is open to exceptional undergraduate and graduate students and will deliver an experience intended to serve as a foundation for a career in plant science. ASPB asked Steve Kroft, Conviron’s President & CEO, to share his perspective on … Read more

Celebrating women in STEM through @365womeninSTEM

From abstract algebra to zoology, women participate in science, technology, engineering and medicine (STEM), but sometimes their stories are not as well known as those of their male colleagues. To remedy this, PhD student Josie Maidment is conducting a one-year Twitter education campaign called “@365womeninSTEM,” in which every day she provides a mini-biography of a … Read more