Plant BLOOME 2021 Winners Announced

ASPB established the Plant Biology Learning Objectives, Outreach Materials, & Education (Plant BLOOME) grant program with the goal to enhance public awareness and understanding of the essential roles of plants in all areas of life (http://bloome.aspb.org). Congratulations to the 2021 ASPB Plant BLOOME grant recipients!   The Legume-rhizobium Mutualism: A Model for Inquiry in the … Read more

Adapting Outreach to Remote Instruction

With support from an ASPB Plant BLOOME Grant, in the past year, we assembled a group of graduate students at the University of California, Riverside to learn how to develop educational material in line with Next Generation Science Standards and generate hands-on content for volunteers to take to schools with the unifying theme of plant … Read more

What VRPlants was up to this Summer

It’s been a busy and productive summer for our VRPlants team. Plant Biology 2019 Our team had the pleasure of exhibiting within the ASPB Education booth and presenting two talks at the ASPB Plant Biology 2019 conference in San Jose, California. Colin Keenan gave two talks. The first,“Can These Glasses Help to Cure Plant Blindness?,” was given as part of the education session. And … Read more

Plant BLOOME 2019 Winners Announced

ASPB established the Plant Biology Learning Objectives, Outreach Materials, & Education (Plant BLOOME) grant program with the goal to enhance public awareness and understanding of the essential roles of plants in all areas of life (http://bloome.aspb.org). Congratulations to the 2019 ASPB Plant BLOOME grant recipients! Bringing Plants to Life Through Theatre Arts PI: Carol Goodwillie, … Read more

VR Plants is excited to see you at the ASPB Southern Section

Our VR Plants team hosted a Virtual Reality Interest Group meeting at North Carolina State University for the larger Research Triangle community. Over 50 local VR community members saw demonstrations from NC State students, including an early preview of the first VRPlants experience. Colin Keenan gave a presentation on the work VRPlants is doing, AKA we told a room of 50 tech geeks and VR enthusiasts about … Read more

Basics of Virtual Reality for Science Education

Greetings from Raleigh, North Carolina where the VRPlants team at North Carolina State University is returning from the holiday by de-briefing and reflecting on a major event from last month, the “Basics of Virtual Reality for Science Education” workshop on December 15th. We had 47 attendants, ranging from primary educators to museum curators, librarians, and university … Read more

Launching Nature’s Timekeepers – Citizen Science from the bottom up

BLOOME Award Update: We had a wonderful last couple of months trying to get our project up and running. We have made some exciting connections with local community leaders and citizen scientists. We are going to talk about our project at the Minnesota Phenology Network Annual Meeting this weekend. Right now we have a simple website and … Read more

Come visit us in VR!

We’ve been hard at work down here in North Carolina, laying the groundwork for our BLOOME project, “Widely Accessible Virtual Reality Exhibits and Workshops for Plant Biology Education.” We’re on the doorstep of our first public release, a ‘teaser trailer’ of sorts. This is a virtual reality experience that will launch directly in your web browser … Read more

Plant BLOOME 2018 Winners Announced

ASPB established the Plant Biology Learning Objectives, Outreach Materials & Education (BLOOME) grant program (the name changed over time) with the goal to enhance public awareness and understanding of the essential roles of plants in all areas of life. Congratulations to the three 2018 ASPB Plant BLOOME recipients! Widely Accessible Virtual Reality Exhibits and Workshops … Read more

Incorporating Venus Flytraps into K-12 STEM Curriculum

Simran Kaur, Sreyashi Ghosh, Juliet Malkowski, and Aileen Wu, high school students at Princeton High School, recently presented at the ASPB Mid-Atlantic conference under the auspices of the ASPB BLOOME Grant, headed by educator Mark Eastburn. They weigh in on their research and bringing STEM to the K-12 classroom below: In a collaboration between researchers … 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

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