This is an interesting idea. I had students take photos in a local flora class that I taught at University of Florida more than a decade ago and just stuck them on a web page. It became a very popular site that has morphed, shrunken and moved a few times but it still gets hits and you could do a much more extensive site with what you are proposing. There are a lot of sites like that now for plant ID classes.
Being a former Keeper of the Herbarium I can say that you should first consult your local herbarium. The student collections gained in these exercises are often used for trade amongst herbaria which allows herbaria in far flung places to get specimens of taxa that they would not otherwise have access to so there is a real incentive to have specimens. Most systematists don't routinely do identifications from photos but that doesn't mean that they aren't useful. High quality, well documented images are extremely useful to the public and thus you would have a good resource developed that would have use beyond the class. The 45,000 that we now have in the PLANTS database are heavily used and we are always looking for more. Many other sites are too. Finally, if you are going to go electronic, I'd suggest that another option would be the use of electronic keys. I've found it a good learning tool for students to document important characteristics with both images and descriptions and several flora instructors who have contacted me about the program that I wrote (SLIKS) have students building simple interactive keys as a project in their local flora classes. Cheers, Stinger Gerald "Stinger" Guala, Ph.D. National Plant Data Center 225 775-6280 X 103 T,Th,F 225 223-9541 Other times. -----Original Message----- From: Ecological Society of America: grants, jobs, news [mailto:ecolo...@listserv.umd.edu] On Behalf Of =?ISO-8859-1?Q?G._Gramig?= Sent: Monday, July 06, 2009 3:44 PM To: ECOLOG-L@LISTSERV.UMD.EDU Subject: [ECOLOG-L] Plant ID Class-Electronic Plant "Collections" Hello All, I am getting ready to teach a plant ID class. Typically for this class students collect, press, and mount plants as a group project. I have been toying with the idea of allowing students an option to make an "electronic collection" instead of a real one if they so choose. My idea is that the students would take high-quality digital photographs of each plant, possibly several photos per plant that document various key anatomical features. Then the photos would be assembled into a PowerPoint slide show with all the relevant labeling, etc. The point of this class is to learn to correctly ID plants in the field, not to learn how to professionally press and mount plant specimens. I think the electronic approach would allow students to focus on the ID aspect without having to deal with the cumbersome and daunting process of making a physical collection. I am wondering if anyone out there has ever tried this approach and if so what pitfalls were encountered. I am thinking specifically about problems in verifying plant identity from a photograph and also problems associated with plagiarism. Any ideas you might have would be welcome! Thanks in advance, Greta
