The botanical education extinction and the fall of plant awareness

Abstract

Civilization is dependent upon plants for survival. Plants permeate our every moment and our relationship with them will dictate how we will manage the threats of climate change and ecological collapse defining the Anthropocene. Yet, despite the significance of plants and the critical role they have played in shaping ecosystems, civilizations, and human cultures, many people are now disconnected from the botanical world. Students are presented with little plant content, particularly identification, compared with animal content. Consequently, we are producing few plant scientists and educating fewer scientists about plants. This drives a self‐accelerating cycle we term the extinction of botanical education . A process of knowledge erosion, that in this instance contributes to our separation from the natural world, makes us blind to the biodiversity crisis and inhibits our ability to restore it. We argue that neglecting the importance of plants within education threatens the foundations of industries and professions that rely on this knowledge. Furthermore, this extinction of botanical education creates an existential threat: Without the skills to fully comprehend the scale of and solutions to human‐induced global change, how do we as a society combat it? We present key research agendas that will enable us to reverse the extinction of botanical education and highlight the critical role plants play on the global stage.

A Sistemática Filogenética em periódicos na área de ensino

“…Segundo os autores, essa abordagem aproxima os estudantes de problemas mais relacionados ao trabalho real do especialista em sistemática de plantas e é apresentado como uma possibilidade de conciliar o que é ensinado com o que é pesquisado no nível acadêmico. Esse resultado obtido no A6 quanto ao uso da abordagem filogenética para o estudo de plantas torna-se particularmente importante atualmente, momento em que a comunidade científica teme que a diminuição do interesse pela biologia vegetal em cursos de graduação prejudique substancialmente políticas de conservação da biodiversidade (Stroud et al, 2022). Assim, entendemos que o uso da abordagem filogenética para o estudo da diversidade biológica no ensino superior é de suma importância, pela possibilidade de envolver diretamente a formação inicial docente e permitir a perpetuação deste estudo na educação básica, permitindo inclusive a aproximação entre escola e universidade.…”

A repeatable scoring system for assessing Smartphone applications ability to identify herbaceous plants

“…Plants account for over 80% of biomass on the planet [1] but many people struggle to identify even common plants in their own areas [2][3][4][5]. This lack of engagement with plants is often referred to as "plant blindness", although "plant awareness disparity" [6] and "plant awareness" [5,7] have both been suggested as more inclusive terms to refer to the same phenomenon. Problems associated with a lack of ability to "see" and identify plants has also manifested in conservation [8][9][10] with rosewood being noted as one of the most trafficked organisms (Margulies et al 2019) [11] and large numbers of cacti being trafficked in 2021 [12].…”

Iconic Arable Weeds: The Significance of Corn Poppy (Papaver rhoeas), Cornflower (Centaurea cyanus), and Field Larkspur (Delphinium consolida) in Hungarian Ethnobotanical and Cultural Heritage

“…Due to their brightly coloured flowers, all three species were popular wildflowers, and, despite their recent decline, they are still well known by the general public [ 35 , 36 , 37 , 38 ] ( Figure 1 ). Because of their general recognition and charismatic nature, they could function as potential “flagship species” in conservation programmes [ 39 ] to combat the general decline of botanical interest and awareness (also known as “plant blindness” [ 40 ]), underlying many further recent global challenges [ 41 ].…”