Plant Identification in the Field
At Cogitania’s Saturday Botany workshop fourth graders visited the Tower Hill Botanic Garden in Boylston, Massachusetts. As the students arrived at the garden the rain stopped just in time to allow us to explore the outside gardens.
Inside the visitor’s center we first viewed a flower show of Primroses exhibiting dozens of species and saw the winners for each division. Then we viewed a plant sale showing hundreds of different varieties.
Outside, we visited the systematic garden which arranges plants according to our current scientific understanding of evolutionary relationships. This educational garden presents 26 distinct plant families, making it a virtual encyclopedia of the plant kingdom.
For the hands-on activity each student chose 2 unknown plants to identify. Using an observation questionnaire, hand lens, and ruler the students recorded detailed observations in order to later classify the plants in the lab.
Next week we will return to Brookline and classify the plants we observed in the field to determine each plant’s common and latin names.
Instructor: Nathan Emerson