The online college class Intro to Alaska Flora from University of Alaska Fairbanks includes fantastic components developed by botany professor Stefanie Ickert-Bond. These online resources are available for free (no paywall), and they are useful far beyond Alaska’s borders and North America. It is also an inspiring example of how to teach an online course where students use the biodiversity around them as their own plant material for class. It includes videos and short lectures, virtual field trips to various biomes, dissecting videos, iNaturalist observation projects, student dissections assignments, family and species determinations.

Course goals: ” The objective of this class is to introduce you to several aspects of Alaska’s unique flora. Class modules and hands-on exercises are designed to familiarize you with the identification, description, and morphology of our local flora. In addition, you will get familiar with dissection of flowers, using technical keys, seeing scientific (Latinized) names, and learn vocabulary that comes with describing and talking about plants, and curate images that you will take of the plants in your immediate surrounding. “

Credit and copyright: Stefanie Ickert-Bond, University of Alaska Fairbanks. E-mail: smickertbond@alaska.edu

Some of the UAF-generated resources are listed below with links, but there is much more on the website. Go and explore on your own! Syllabus and Schedule is here, and the course manual can be downloaded here.

Living Glass lecture on Plant Reproductive Morphology with Stefanie Ickert-Bond

List of resources and components:

GENERAL BOTANY, EQUIPMENT, AND TECHNIQUES

  • Video: Turning your surroundings into a lab! LINK
  • Video (Powerpoint lecture): How plants get their names [nomenclature, names, botanical history, code of nomenclature, Linnaeus, classification]. LINK
  • Video (demonstration): Home Microscopy options. LINK
  • Video (table top demonstration): Pressing Plants. LINK
  • Video (table top demonstration): Introduction to Dichotomous Keys (demonstration with LEGO). LINK

MORPHOLOGY

  • Video (Learning Glass lecture): Vegetative Morphology: Roots and Stems, Part I, general terminology. LINK
  • Video (Learning Glass lecture): Vegetative Morphology: Roots and Stems, Part II. LINK
  • Video (Learning Glass lecture): Vegetative Morphology: Leaves, Part I. LINK
  • Video (Learning Glass lecture): Vegetative Morphology: Leaves, Part II. LINK
  • Video (Learning Glass lecture): Vegetative Morphology: Leaves, Part III. LINK
  • Video (Learning Glass lecture): Reproductive Morphology: Flowers, Part I, general terminology. LINK
  • Video (Learning Glass lecture): Reproductive Morphology: Flowers, Part II, androecium. LINK
  • Video (Learning Glass lecture): Reproductive Morphology: Flowers, Part III, gynoecium. LINK
  • Video (Learning Glass lecture): Reproductive Morphology: Fruits, Part I, general terminology. LINK
  • Video (Learning Glass lecture): Reproductive Morphology: Fruits, Part II, dry, dehiscent. LINK
  • Video (Learning Glass lecture): Reproductive Morphology: Fruits, Part III, dry, dehiscent capsules. LINK
  • Video (Learning Glass lecture): Reproductive Morphology: Fruits, Part III, dry, dehiscent capsules. LINK
  • Video (Learning Glass lecture): Reproductive Morphology: Fruits, Part IV, dry, indehiscent. LINK
  • Video (Learning Glass lecture): Reproductive Morphology: Fruits, Part V, fleshy. LINK
  • Video (table top demonstration): Live Fruits, dry, dehiscent. LINK
  • Video (table top demonstration): Live Fruits, dry, indehiscent. LINK
  • Video (table top demonstration): Live Fruits, fleshy, simple. LINK
  • Video (table top demonstration): Live Fruits, fleshy, aggregate and multiple. LINK

VASCULAR PLANTS OVERVIEW

  • Video (Learning Glass lecture): Vascular Plants, overview. LINK
  • Video (Learning Glass lecture): Vascular Plants, Clubmosses, spikemosses and quillworts. LINK
  • Video (Learning Glass lecture): Vascular Plants, Seed plants. LINK
  • Video (Learning Glass lecture): Vascular Plants, Ferns and horsetails. LINK

PLANT FAMILIES

  • Video (Powerpoint lecture): Brassicaceae (economic importance and floral characteristics). LINK
  • Video (lecture, demonstration): Brassicaceae, live dissection of Arabidopsis. LINK
  • Video (Powerpoint lecture): Ericaceae. LINK
  • Video (lecture, demonstration): Ericaceae live dissection. LINK
  • Video (Powerpoint lecture): Rosaceae. LINK
  • Video (lecture, demonstration): Rosaceae, live dissection of Fragaria. LINK
  • Video (Powerpoint lecture): Fabaceae. LINK
  • Video (lecture, demonstration): Fabaceae, live dissection of Astragalus. LINK
  • Video (Powerpoint lecture): Ranunculaceae. LINK
  • Video (lecture, demonstration): Ranunculaceae, live dissection of Anemone. LINK
  • Video (Powerpoint lecture): Apiaceae. LINK
  • Video (lecture, demonstration): Apiaceae, live dissection of Cnidium. LINK
  • Video (Powerpoint lecture): Polygonaceae. LINK
  • Video (lecture, demonstration): Polygonaceae, live dissection of Rumex. LINK

BIOMES

  • Virtual Biome: Interior Forest (Alaska). LINK
  • Virtual Biome: Subalpine tundra (Alaska). LINK
  • Virtual Biome: Low-growing spruce forest (Alaska). LINK
  • Virtual Biome: Treeless bogs (Alaska). LINK
  • Virtual Biome: Floodplain thickets (Alaska). LINK

ACTIVITIES

  • Peer dichotomous keys, see this page.  (More information also on this page about using keys in general.)
  • Plant morphology bingo, see this page.
  • Dissection of specimens by students, see this page.