The SPRING 2013 issue is now online as a PDF file or as a flip-book style online reader. Submit your articles for peer review here SEARCH ALL ISSUES | ANNOUNCEMENTS | CAREER OPPORTUNITIES Recent Issues - WINTER 2012 (58-4),   FALL 2012 (58-3),   SUMMER 2012 (58-2),   SPRING 2012 (58-1),   WINTER 2011 (57-4) The Plant Science Bulletin (Print: ISSN 0032-0919, Electronic: ISSN 1537-9752) is an informal communication published four times a year, with information on upcoming meetings, courses, field trips, news of colleagues, new books, and professional opportunities. It provides a means of advertising items or materials wanted. It also serves as a forum for circulating BSA committee reports, for distributing innovative teaching approaches and methods, and for discussing issues of concern to Society members such as environmental policy and educational funding.

Table of Contents for the Upcoming, Summer Issue (59-2)

News from the Society
       » BSA Science Education News and Notes
  In Memoriam
       » Dr. Rivka Dulberger 1922-2012
  Personalia
       » Karl Niklas Named Weiss Presidential Fellow
       » Bruce Kirchoff Wins First Ever American Society of Plant Taxonomists Innovations in Plant Systematics Education Prize
  Just for Fun
       » A PLANT ANATOMY DICTIONARY OF LAST RESORT
Reports and Reviews
  Books Reviewed
  Books Received for Review

BSA Science Education News and Notes

BSA Science Education News and Notes is a quarterly update about the BSA’s education efforts and the broader education scene.  We invite you to submit news items or ideas for future features.  Contact:  Claire Hemingway, BSA Education Director, at chemingway@botany.org or Marshall Sundberg, PSB Editor, at psb@botany.org.

Society Initiatives and Members in Action

Life Discovery-Doing Science Conference
“Improving Science Education is Not Rocket Science.  It’s Much Harder.”  Jay Labov introduced humor along with key recent education reports and research in his keynote address at the inaugural Life Discovery-Doing Science Conference in March.  The conference complements the digital library developed in collaboration by the Botanical Society of America, Ecological Society of America, Society for the Study of Evolution, and Society for Economic Botany. 

The innovative active-learning approaches shared at the conference were suitable for high school to college classrooms as well as out-of-school and online learning environments.  BSA members were well represented among the attendees and presenters.  For example, Lena Strewe shared about the online campus flora project that involves Rutgers students documenting the local flora and contributing to the Consortium of Northeastern Herbaria.  Steve Saupe and two undergraduates demonstrated how to create time-lapse videos of plant for the classroom.  Kathleen Shea described a range of questions students could ask about carbon accumulation, biomass, and ecology using a permanent plot project.  Stokes Baker presented examples of using digital image analysis, particularly with fluorescence, to integrate mathematics into laboratories.  Kara Butterworthwas a panel speaker about Building Pathways and Partnerships between K-12 and College. 

If you missed the March 2013 conference, slides from the keynote, workshop, and session presentations are available at http://www.esa.org/ldc/program/presentations/.

PlantingScience
As the Spring session closes, the PlantingScience team wishes to add our thanks to the many scientists who shared their passion and expertise with the 20 participating middle and high school classes.  You make a difference to how students experience science!  Just consider these comments.

Student responses:
Thank you very much for helping us with our project. we were very lucky to have such an awesome mentor. honestly I hope we have another project like this in the near future:)"  -Greater Nanticoke Area High School Student

Thank you for your help with our experiment! We really appreciate your knowledge on plants... I will definitely consider plant biology as a possible career."  -Springfield Central High School Student

"We just wanna say thank you for all your help and comments! We've enjoyed working together! We're sad that this project is finished."  -Bonhoeffer College Student

Teacher responses:
Student: "Mrs. Parfitt could we do a secondary experiment because we wonder what would happen if…."
That's what I'm talking about!  -Mrs. Parfitt

"Thanks for all of your help; this has been the best session yet for brainstorming and interaction between student teams and mentors….Some students moaned when I told them this would be the last week for PS.  Thank you for taking time to work with my students."   -Mrs. Indriolo

"…know that I truly appreciate all you have done to challenge, question, and excite my students. This is a group of inner city kids who have never done anything remotely like functioning in a sterile lab environment, so the experience and the foundation we have laid for them in the scientific process is something they would never have received anywhere else in my District."   -Mr. Kosmoski

This spring we hosted a number of videoconferences for classes and several mentors.  We also offered a star project award for teams with exemplary aspects of their projects.  Team members receive a certificate and t-shirt.  Check out winning star projects from nominations this spring at http://tinyurl.com/caktwtb

Recent Publications and News Around the Nation

Scientific Societies Supporting STEM Faculty
What do we know about how STEM faculty programs offered by scientific societies are structured and their effectiveness?  That question is addressed in The Role of Scientific Societies in STEM Faculty Workshops report, which expands on the 2012 conference that brought together leaders of seven programs and two education researchers.  Comparisons across the biology, geosciences, chemistry, engineering, mathematics, and physics programs are informative, as are the future directions and advice for other disciplinary societies.
http://www.aapt.org/Conferences/newfaculty/upload/STEM_REPORT-2.pdf

Perspectives on the Broader Impacts Criteria
Have you written or reviewed proposals submitted to the National Science Foundation lately and noticed the 2012 changes to the Broader Impact Criterion?  Perhaps you wondered just what kinds of broader impact activities were proposed under the original view of Criterion 2 and what the new view of the broader impact criterion might mean.

Two recent publications offer perspectives.  In the February 2013 issue of Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, Nadkarni and Stasch call for new mechanisms to make grantees accountable for broader impacts activities and pathways for positive feedback (http://www.deepdyve.com/lp/ecological-society-of-america/how-broad-are-our-broader-impacts-an-analysis-of-the-national-science-685vxS1nkD).  Their analysis of projects funded by the NSF Ecosystems Studies Program (2000-2010) revealed that most proposed to reach audiences close to academics through teaching and training activities.  In the March 2013 issue of BioScience, Frodeman and colleagues pick up that thread and exhort individual scientists and collaborative groups to view the new broader impact criteria as an opportunity to go beyond supporting graduate students and developing websites (http://www.bioone.org/doi/abs/10.1525/bio.2013.63.3.2?af=R&).  What are your views on effective broader impacts and how they can be developed and sustained?

Final Next Generation Science Standards Released
After extensive community comment and review, the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) have been released in their final form.  The executive summary describes reasoning behind a major design shift to organize the standards around the dimensions of Disciplinary Core Ideas, Scientific and Engineering Practices, and Cross Cutting Ideas:  coupling science practices with content gives the learning context.  And it reflects how science is actually practiced.  For more background behind the standards and to download PDFs of the standards arranged by Disciplinary Core Ideas, visit http://www.nextgenscience.org.

Upcoming Opportunities to Enhance Teaching and Learning

Through May, attend one of the remaining NSF-sponsored Interactive Web-based Workshops on the TUES program, proposal strategy, project evaluation, and impacts. 
http://ehrweb01.aaas.org/stem-iwbw/workshops/

The HHMI/National Academies Summer Institutes on Undergraduate Education are still accepting applications for the Mountain West (apply by April 26), Gulf Coast (apply by May 10), and Midwest (apply by May 29).
http://www.academiessummerinstitute.org

Attend the Society for the Advancement of Biology Education Research 2013 National Meeting, July 11-14 in Minnesota.
http://saber-biologyeducationresearch.wikispaces.com/home

Join the PULSE community of educators working toward change in undergraduate life science education.
http://www.pulsecommunity.org

Don’t miss BOTANY 2013: Celebrating Diversity! July 27-31 in New Orleans (http://www.botanyconference.org).
An excellent line-up of education, outreach, and training offerings awaits:
Sunday

• Workshops on genomics, visual learning, botanical art, citizen science, virtual herbaria, graduate school and beyond, writing, publishing, and more.
• Restoring the Bayou, Botany-in-Action Service Project
• Celebrating diversity in the understanding of science: Botanists as ambassadors to a spectrum of humans, Plenary Address by Nalini Nadkarni

Monday

• Public Participation in Scientific Research: Emerging resources for Botany, Symposium organized by Austin Mast, Sarah Newman
• Herbarium Digitization for Research, Teaching, and the Public, Symposium organized by Eric Ribbens
• Yes, Bobby, Evolution is Real, Symposium organized by Marshall Sundberg, Joseph Armstrong

Tuesday

• Broadening Participation – Recruiting and Retaining Outstanding Scientists in the Botanical Sciences, Symposium organized by Anna Monfils, Ann Sakai
• Enhancing Scientist Diversity in Plant Biology Luncheon (ticketed event)
• Changes in the STEM Classroom. What do we need to do? Roundtable organized by Phil Gibson

And, of course, there will be the Teaching Section presentations and posters. Yes, we also hope to see you at the PlantingScience mixer.  Check the conference website for schedule updates.

In Memoriam

Dr. Rivka Dulberger (Tel Aviv University) was a leading expert on the reproductive biology of flowering plants, particularly those with sexual polymorphisms. Sadly, her life ended on December 7, 2012 in Tel Aviv after a long and productive career.  She was a scientist, teacher, wife, mother, grandmother, friend and mentor who, throughout her career, maintained a fascination for the biology of flowers. Here, we provide a short account of her scientific contributions and remarkable life. We are grateful to her son Dan for providing information about her early life and wartime experiences.

Rivka was born on May 7, 1922, in the village of Briceni, Moldovia (formerly Romania). She attended high school in the city of Czernowitz, in southwestern Ukraine. In July 1941 the Nazis took over Czernowitz from the Soviets and established a ghetto from which 50,000 Jews were deported. In October 1941, together with hundreds of thousands of other Jews, Rivka and her family were forced to walk 250 km from Czernowitz to Bersad, a notorious camp with little food or shelter. Rivka endured 27 months of extreme physical and mental hardship in the camp and lost family members. While managing to survive under the most cruel and inhumane conditions, Rivka met another prisoner—Ascher Dulberger—who would later become her husband. The two were partners until his death in 2006. In March 1944 Bersad was liberated by the Red Army and, of the approximately 21,000 people who entered the Nazi camp, 18,000 perished. Although this horrific experience shaped many aspects of Rivka’s identity and gave her a strong and independent personality, like many survivors she rarely spoke about her wartime experiences.  After WWII, Rivka and Ascher lived in Bucharest where she completed her first degree in biology. In 1950 they married and immigrated to Israel and are survived by their son Dan and grandchildren Itay and Tair. 

Rivka received her Ph.D. in 1967 from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. The thesis “Pollination Systems in Plants of Israel” was conducted under the guidance of the renowned plant evolutionist Professor Daniel Zohary.  In 1951 Rivka started working in the Tel Aviv Biological-Pedagogical Institute, which five years later served as the basis for the Faculty of Life Sciences in the newly formed Tel Aviv University. Rivka remained at Tel Aviv for the remainder of her career and was known as a passionate teacher of classes in morphology, taxonomy and systematics for 40 years. During this time she published over 30 papers and book chapters, many of which were in top-tier journals. Rivka’s publications were imaginative and characterized by a careful attention to detail that often revealed important insights on reproductive mechanisms. In particular, her training in structural botany and skills in microscopy resulted in many novel observations that allowed her to relate floral form to function.  She trained a handful of graduate students at Tel Aviv and provided valuable advice to many others, both in Israel and overseas. All valued her detailed knowledge of the morphology and physiology of flowers and her willingness to freely share her ideas.

Rivka Dulberger is most well known for her studies of the floral polymorphism heterostyly. Populations of heterostylous plants contain two or three style morphs (mating types) that differ reciprocally in stigma and anther height. Her major contribution to this area, based on experimental studies of Linum and members of the Plumbaginaceae1,2, was to focus attention on the important role of physical and biochemical interactions between pollen grains and stigmatic papillae in governing incompatibility reactions. She proposed that topographical complementarity between these structures functions to promote compatible crosses and reduce incompatible pollinations. Her work on heterostyly was novel because it integrated morphological, developmental and physiological facets of the polymorphism in an effort to understand the adaptive significance of ancillary pollen and stigma characters in the syndrome. Her review on the functional significance of floral polymorphisms3 represents the major synthesis on this topic and should be required reading for anyone interested in heterostyly.   

In addition to working on heterostyly, Rivka also made important contributions to our understanding of several other problems in floral biology. These included the genetic basis of gender polymorphism in Silene4 (with Auguste Horovitz), pollination mechanisms in various legumes, including Cassia5, and the function of andromonoecy in Solanum.6 She was also the first to discover late-acting ovarian incompatibility in dimorphic Narcissus.7 This finding, made during her thesis research and subsequently published in Evolution, set the stage for much subsequent work by other laboratories on floral polymorphisms in the genus. In the mid 1970s, Rivka spent a productive research leave at the University of California, Berkeley working with Professor Robert Ornduff on the problem of the function of mirror-image flowers (enantiostyly). Their publications on the South African genera Wachendorfia8 and Cyanella9 stimulated later work on this intriguing floral polymorphism. Indeed, it is notable that Rivka was often the first to identify interesting reproductive systems, and her studies frequently provided basic information that became the foundation for subsequent work by others.            

According to her son Dan, plants were Rivka’s great love and all the pictures in the family home were botanical in nature. However, she also had a passion for literature and music and impressively spoke seven languages (Hebrew, Russian, German, Yiddish, English, French, and Romanian).  We both had the great pleasure to get to know Rivka personally at important stages in our careers and these interactions were influential. SCHB was a graduate student at Berkeley when Rivka visited. Earnest discussions on the function of traits in the heterostylous syndrome left a lasting impression and led to Rivka’s sabbatical at the University of Toronto with him in the late 1980s.  LMW was a postdoctoral fellow at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem in the mid 1990s and during this period interacted with Rivka frequently to discuss science as well as life in Israel.  These discussions, sometimes arguments, could be very challenging as Rivka loved to question orthodoxy and had an unswerving directness that one rarely encounters in North American culture. Nevertheless, a verbal jousting match with Rivka about science or politics was never personal and she was an enduring friend and generous mentor to us both. Rivka was a member of the Botanical Society of America since 1972.  We will miss her greatly, and botany in Israel has lost one of its earliest and most valued pioneers.

Literature Cited

1. Dulberger, R. 1987. Fine structure and cytochemistry of the stigma surface and incompatibility in some distylous Linum species. Annals of Botany 59, 203-217.
2. Dulberger, R. 1975. Intermoprh structural differences between stigmatic papillae and pollen grains in relation to incompatibility in Plumbaginaceae. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London Series B. 188, 257-274.
3. Dulberger, R. 1992. Floral polymorphisms and their functional significance in the heterostylous syndrome. In: Evolution and function of heterostyly (ed. S.C.H. Barrett). Springer-Verlag, Berlin.
4. Horovitz, A., & Dulberger, R. 1983. The genetic basis of gender in Silene vulgaris. Heredity 51, 371-376.
5. Dulberger, R. 1981. The floral biology of Cassia didymobotya and Cassia auriculata (Caesalpiniaceae). American Journal of Botany 68, 1350-1360.
6. Dulberger, R., Levy, A. & Palevitch, D. 1981. Andromonoecy in Solanum marginatum. Botanical Gazette 142, 259-266.
7. Dulberger, R. 1964. Flower dimorphism and self-incompatibility in Narcissus tazetta. Evolution 18, 361-363.
8. Ornduff, R., & Dulberger, R. 1978. Floral enantiomorphy and reproductive system of Wachendorfia paniculata (Haemodoraceae). New Phytologist 80, 427-434.
9. Dulberger, R., & Ornduff, R. 1980. Floral morphology and reproductive biology of 4 species of Cyanella (Tecophilaeaceae). New Phytologist 86, 45-56.

Personalia

Karl Niklas Named Weiss Presidential Fellow

Karl Niklas has been named a Stephen H. Weiss Presidential Fellow at Cornell. The Weiss Presidential Fellowship is awarded for excellence in teaching and advising undergraduates. The award is named for Stephen H. Weiss '57, former chair of the Cornell  Board of Trustees.  The recipients will be honored by the Cornell Board of Trustees in the Spring of 2013.

Dr. Bruce Kirchoff Wins First Ever American Society of Plant Taxonomists Innovations in Plant Systematics Education Prize

UNCG Biology Professor, Dr. Bruce Kirchoff, was recently awarded the first ever “Innovations in Plant Systematics Education” prize by the American Society of Plant Taxonomists. Dr. Kirchoff won for his "innovative application of research in cognitive psychology to teach plant identification skills" and his "record of pedagogical research and use of technology to interact with students." The award letter goes on further to say his work "is an exceptional example of combining science and education effectively. It is a wonderful model for our membership in this inaugural year of the award." Dr. Kirchoff will be honored at the annual American Society of Plant Taxonomists banquet at the Botany 2013 meeting.

Dr. Kirchoff sees tremendous value in visual learning, and he helps his students harness its power to learn biology. Here is an example: In his plant diversity class, students must master the intricate life cycles of the algae, fungi and land plants. Instead of having his students memorize the details of these cycles, he has created standardized ways of representing them visually, and software to teach these representations. “Don’t memorize – picture the life cycle,” he tells his students. The picture is a schema that summarizes a large amount of information.

Trying to memorize the individual parts of the cycle can drive students nuts, he says. Where does the gametophyte go? The archegonium? What about the carposporophyte? And this is just the beginning. Visual learning provides a better way.

In some ways his software is like using flashcards to help memorize and learn—but it’s much more effective.

“I am teaching my students to think visually,” he says, to build up and see patterns in their minds eye. When they can “see” the pattern, they can work back to the facts. The pattern is a visual summary of the facts.

With research centering on plant structure and development, and on visual learning, Kirchoff has been a member of UNCG’s biology faculty since 1986. His work with visual learning has led him to become an entrepreneur. The UNCG Office of Innovation and Commercialization advised him on starting a company around his proprietary software. The UNCG Teaching and Learning Center (now the FTLC) funded some of its initial development. As a result, the software technology is offered free to any course at UNCG. Any faculty member who’d like more information may contact him at kirchoff@uncg.edu, and more information is available at http://www.metisllc.com/.

In another class he has created a version of the software that teaches plant recognition. “You learn to identify plants using the same part of your brain that you use when you look at faces,” Kirchoff says. Students can see and learn the plants at home, on their own time. They come to class prepared to learn at an advanced level, and they do better on their exams.

The software can be used in any class, wherever visual learning is appropriate.

Classes at the Wagga Wagga campus of Charles Sturt University in Australia use the software. Medical residents in neuropathology at Stanford Medical School use it. Dr. Catherine Matthews (Education) and Ann Somers (Biology) are developing a version as part of their NSF-funded HERP project. Leaders of a Science Olympiad team in Honolulu are using it. UNCG chemistry professor Dr. Mitchell Croat is developing a version for organic chemistry, and using it in his classes.

These techniques also have use outside the sciences. Kirchoff asks, is a work of art—even an abstract piece—to be seen as a whole, or as composed of parts? “The answer is… both.” The parts interact to create the whole, but they are only parts—they only have their form and place in the work—because they are “of the whole.” This is the part–whole relationship in art. The same relationship occurs in organisms.

The great German poet and scientist, Goethe, saw this clearly, and it influenced all of his work. He coined the term “morphology,” which is the study of the structure of living things, and Kirchoff’s field of study. Goethe basically said that organisms are like works of art. There is an integral wholeness to the organism. They are composed of parts, but they are not just the parts.

Is what he teaches like the visual expertise described in the book “Blink”? Yes, the first chapter of that popular book dovetails with what he is hoping to achieve. The idea is to be able to be both quick and accurate, with one look. Visual experts do this, and he is teaching his students to do it too. “Using the software, we can get the instant recognition effect with only a short amount of training.”

Used with permission By Campus Weekly

Just for Fun

A PLANT ANATOMY DICTIONARY OF LAST RESORT

One of the refreshing surprises of teaching a specialty course is to cross paths with a student who is coming from a different place and who provides a... well, novel perspective.  Don Casadonte is a doctoral student in music whose interest in what makes a good clarinet reed brought him to Plant Anatomy.  After hearing snickers from students all quarter from his area of the lab, I confronted him and he fessed up to having compiled a list of "informal" definitions of terms from an outsider's point of view.  What follows are some of the more printable and less groanable of his creations, including his snappy preamble.  The responsibility for all the groans that remain is strictly his, as I, the teacher, just played the part of the straight man.

We offer for your perusal a selection from the previously unavailable (indeed unwritten) book Knock Wood: A Plant Anatomy Dictionary of Last Resort.  One may wonder why this is a dictionary of last resort, but after a quick scanning of its contents, we're sure you'll agree with us that this is indeed the last place to go to resolve your anatomical difficulties.  Nevertheless, we hope that you enjoy this excerpt and remember the famous words of the plant, which exclaimed on seeing its first fly, "That looks like `a gnat to me'...."

Phyllotaxis —What you're required to do every year by April 15.
Siphonostele—An activity a gasoline thief engages in.
Idioblast—A party thrown the night before a final exam.
Rhytidome—The opposite of a Leftidome.
Auxin—The city where the University of Exas is located.
Eukaryotic—What you say to an otic when you want them to transport something.
Stone Cell—A drunk tank.
PlastichronTM—A rubber clock for those hurried people who wish they could stretch time just a bit.
Anomalous secondary growth—Razor stubble.
A-pical cells—Extra-large cells that taste good on hamburgers.
Mesophyll—Opposite of mesoempty.
Bulliform cell—The place to lock up people who think they're Teddy Roosevelt.
Callus—The most often used word by the director of the Plant Follies of 1942.  See also Don't Callus...
Phellogen—A "manly" drink.  Opposite of Galogen.
Storied wood—A tree that's heard it all.
Slime body—Noun. See also mud wrestling.
Axillary "Bud"—The C.B. nickname for the first person to be inducted into the Truck Driver's Hall of Fame.
Casparian strip—What the friendly ghost does before taking a shower.
Companion cell—Tonto's tent.
Diarch—What you do after being hit by lightning.
Pistillate—The usual reason why people lose gun fights.
Prop roots—Scenery for Tarzan.
Sapwood —A really stupid tree.

---Contributed by Fred Sack, University of British Columbia

Books Received for Review

If you would like to review a book or books for PSB, the easiest way to do so is to: highlight and copy the book details, click on the Reviewer Requested link to the right of the book's details and paste the information into the email form that pops up. Remember to include your name, University/Department, all of your mailing details and the date by which the book will be reviewed (15 January, 15 April, 15 July or 15 October). Alternatively, email, write or call the Editor, including the details noted above, as soon as you notice the book of interest in this list because they go quickly! - Editor (psb@botany.org, Ph 620-341-5605)

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