Enhancing Student Experience in Plant Sciences through Inquiry Based Learning.

Many students at land grant universities start their undergraduate studies with an undecided major or switch from one to another major during their undergraduate career. With so many competing and more lucrative career options, recruiting undergraduate students into Plant Sciences is a challenging task. Innovative and entertaining ideas must be applied to motivate and attract students towards plant sciences. In an effort to increase student interest in plant sciences a multi-faceted group project, ‘Know Your Plant Project’ (KYPP) was introduced in a freshmen level general education course, Introductory Plant Sciences that had students from various majors in and outside the College of agricultural, consumer and environmental sciences at New Mexico State University. Additional objective of this project included enhancing teamwork and problem solving skills. For the KYPP project, student teams were assigned a “mystery” plant or plant product. Each team must then identify the plant or plant product they are assigned, research various aspects and uses of the plant or plant product, and create a presentation, including PowerPoint, for the class. To ensure students consider a global perspective beyond domestic plants and issues, assigned “mystery” plants and plant products included international examples. Students were evaluated for their individual contributions towards the group activity by the instructor and through confidential peer-evaluations. A reflective element was also included in the project. A vast majority of students indicated the project was a positive experience. The results of the project demonstrated that inquiry based hands-on experiences are instrumental in 1) helping students connect abstract ideas to the real world, 2) building personal connections between students, and 3) generating and maintaining interest in agriculture and plant sciences. Through content-based inquiry and learning using the ‘Know Your Plant Project’, students improved their teamwork and communication skills, as well as developed information literacy and problem solving strategies.