Professional Development: Effective Teaching Strategies for College Biology

Are you a current or soon-to-be biology instructor seeking professional development to engage your students and increase their understanding and appreciation of the life sciences? Consider Effective Teaching Strategies for College Biology, a new online course for you to explore and practice effective teaching strategies for undergraduate biology that engage students and improve learning outcomes. … Read more

The PRL’s Golden Anniversary: 50 Years of Plant Science Exploration and Discovery

The PRL’s Golden Anniversary: 50 Years of Plant Science Exploration and Discovery Imagine a Gordon Conference crossed with a family reunion and you will have a pretty good idea of what it was like at the recent 50th year anniversary celebration of the Michigan State University (MSU) Department of Energy (DOE)-funded Plant Research Laboratory (PRL).  … Read more

Student Research: Fall 2015 Update

ASPB collaborates with www.PlantingScience.org, a learning community where scientists provide online mentoring to student teams in middle school through undergraduate settings so students can design and think through their own inquiry projects. Scroll to the end of this post for an impressive list of who is doing what. The fall 2015 online meeting space was … Read more

It takes a community to raise a scientist

In her book “It takes a village”, Hillary Clinton observed that adults outside the family have profound impacts on the development of a child, and advocated for society to better meet children’s needs. We raise scientists in much the same way we raise children, often in small groups with one or two mentors (and sometimes … Read more

Our STEM Workforce and The Disruptive Innovation in Higher Education Summit

New visions and multi-faceted collaborations to creatively, efficiently, and collaboratively remaster STEM higher education and its K-12 pipeline. The Disruptive Innovation in Higher Education Summit presented by the STEMconnector® Higher Education Council and sponsored by Cengage Learning, myCollegeOptions®, and Monsanto was a dynamic event aimed at advancing a national (US) effort to meet the education … Read more

Plants in the News 13 November 2015: Indonesia on Fire

Recent fires in Indonesia have been making headlines around the world and raising concerns about their impacts on wildlife, global carbon emissions and health problems for local people. Fires have been a recurring problem for many years, but this year they are exacerbated by drought conditions caused by a strong El Niño event. Since September … Read more

Supporting the Pipeline: K-12 STEM Educators

It’s critical to consider the education of those who will teach STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) in the K-12 pipeline. One resource for supporting the development of effective STEM teachers is UTeach. Here is an overview from their About page: UTeach is an innovative university-based teacher preparation program working to increase the number of qualified … Read more

Petition: Scientists in Support of GMO Technology for Crop Improvement

Dear  Colleagues, As you know, there is substantial fear of GMO technology both within commercial and public spheres. Recently, companies like Chipotle and initiatives such as the Non-GMO Project (representing over 4,500 non-GMO brands) have cited a petition of 300 scientists that claim there is no consensus regarding the scientific safety of GMOs. A group of scientists and myself have organized a petition … Read more

President’s Letter: A Lot to Think About

It’s amazing how quickly my year as president-elect of ASPB has passed, and I now find myself writing my first President’s Letter. I echo the words of my predecessor, Julian Schroeder, when I say that it is truly an honor to serve this important Society. It is also a somewhat daunting experience. Before becoming president-elect, … Read more

Generation Agriculture: Who Will Feed the World in the Next Generation?

As noted in and blogged with permission from Friday Notes, CAST: Reports, surveys, loud headlines–Who Will Feed the Nine Billion? After observing young people in FFA, at the World Food Prize, in university activities, and at many other occasions, we have confidence that Generation Agriculture will rise to the occasion. In the meantime, the stories … Read more

Recognizing Our Authors: Casal, Ori, Gruissem, and Bressan

This post is part of the Recognizing our Authors series. Jorge Casal The Plant Cell, Plant Physiology Jorge Casal undertook his early studies at the University of Buenos Aires (UBA), where he completed his MSc in 1987, before moving to the University of Leicester (UK) where he completed his PhD in 1989. He is now professor at UBA, … Read more

Industrial chemistry, prepare to be biohacked*

*Note that we use the term biohacking as it has been used since 1988 to refer to DIY biology (Strange, 1988). More recently biohacking has been used also to refer to strategies to enhance the human body through wearable technology and nutritional supplements. Imagine a typical industrial process – say the production of gasoline or … Read more

Teaching with Wikipedia: collective intelligence, epistemology, digital literacy, and addressing bias

To support ASPB’s ongoing partnership with Wiki Edu (see this blogpost) and encourage the successful adoption of Wiki Edu resources, here is some hard-earned insight on what works (and what needs work) when you are… Teaching (more than just) writing with Wikipedia Original post by Eryk Salvaggio Zach McDowell, who has taught with Wikipedia at the … Read more

NYT Publishes ASPB Response to 10/24 Article on European GMO Policies

The New York Times published the following letter to the editor from ASPB on October 30, 2015.  ASPB’s letter was in response to the October 24th article by Mark Lynas, the political director for the Cornell Alliance for Science.  In his piece, Lynas laments that due to “Europe’s Coalition of the Ignorant, we are witnessing … Read more

Plants in the News, October 30 2015: Oxford Plants 400

The 400th anniversary of the founding of plant science at Oxford will be celebrated on July 25 2021 (see its history). As a celebration and count-down to this anniversary, the University of Oxford Botanic Garden and Harcourt Arboretum, together with the Oxford University Herbaria and the Department of Plant Sciences, are highlighting 400 plants of … Read more

Plants in the News, October 23 2015: Booo-tany

  Tired of the same old Halloween decorations? Maybe you’re ready for Booo-tany! There are plenty of plants that embody spooky themes, and what could be cooler than dressing up as a corpse flower or parasitic dodder? (If you do, send photos….). Here we highlight just a few of the Booo-tanical wonders to inspire your … Read more

Plantum Leaps to the Future of Plant Biology: The Plant Cell Introduces Breakthrough Reports

The Plant Cell is introducing a new category of research article entitled “Breakthrough Reports” (see the Editorial October 2015) to provide a home in the journal for studies that might not provide a “complete” mechanistic story but nevertheless are deemed to present exciting new data and ideas that may open new avenues of investigation. Breakthrough … Read more

Policy Update: FDA Announces RFI and Accompanying Public Meeting on Biotechnology

On October 16, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) released a Request for Information (RFI) on “Clarifying Current Roles and Responsibilities Described in the Coordinated Framework for the Regulation of Biotechnology and Developing a Long-Term Strategy for the Regulation of the Products of Biotechnology” and announced a public meeting.  This is the next step in … Read more

Collaborating for Creating Connections – Biology in Action!

ASPB actively seeks and sustains collaborative connections which support evidence-based plant science instruction and discipline-based education research. To that end, ASPB is pleased to serve as a Conference Collaborator (http://www.esa.org/ldc/about/) for Creating Connections – Biology in Action! As Conference Collaborator we promote the event and disseminate its outcomes in tandem with our affiliates in the … Read more