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Introduction to Plant Phenology with Museum Specimens of Desert Prickly Pear (Opuntia phaeacantha)

Author(s): Julie Marie Schlichte1, Michael Moody2, Vicky Zhuang

1. The University of Texas at El Paso 2. University of Texas at El Paso

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Summary:
Students engage in hands-on exploration of phenology by working with digitized herbarium specimens, particularly focusing on prickly pear specimens from the UTEP herbarium. They learn to identify reproductive parts of the target plant species, which…

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Students engage in hands-on exploration of phenology by working with digitized herbarium specimens, particularly focusing on prickly pear specimens from the UTEP herbarium. They learn to identify reproductive parts of the target plant species, which serves as a practical foundation to collecting phenological data. Using this knowledge, the students collaboratively analyze images of specimens gathered from biodiversity databases and collect climate data from the Oregon State Prism Climate Explorer, examining temperature and precipitation patterns. This approach offers students real-world experience in accessing publicly available data from natural history museums to understand shifts in phenology and their ecological implications.

Licensed under CC Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International according to these terms

Version 1.0 - published on 23 Feb 2024 doi:10.25334/PKZF-CJ60 - cite this

Keywords

  1. botany
  2. climate change
  3. phenology
  4. herbarium
  5. cactus

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  2. Audience Level
  3. Activity Length
  4. Software Used
  5. Inclusive Pedagogy for Life Science Education
Contents:
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Description

Intended audience:

Undergraduates in their first botany class. The module is best conducted after lectures in the reproductive parts of the plant.

Description:

The resource includes the lab work sheet with an introduction and discussion questions, samples answers, notes to instructors, and a sample data sheet. It also includes a google sheet template used for collecting data and autogenerated graphs that update as data is added. The resource was created with the intent that it can be modified from a minimum of a 1.5 hour lesson plan to several weeks for both in person and distance learning. Instructors can modify the amount of samples a student or group may measure and variables examined to fit within their planned time period. The google sheet template can also be adapted for any taxon or taxa by changing the related data and links. In its current form, the module can be run in 2 hours and was designed with using prickly pear from the UTEP herbarium.

Learning Objectives:

 

1.   Define and identify the reproductive parts of a plant

2.   Explain the concept of flowering phenology

3.   Apply the knowledge of reproductive morphology to scoring phenology in herbarium specimens

4.   Analyze trends in phenology and interpret the resulting graphs

5.   Understand the importance of data quality and defining variables

 

This project was funded in part by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (CAGML-247505-OMLS-21)

 

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