Plants speed science education

This is the story of the little plant that could.

Brassica rapa, as it is known in Latin, is fast. It is so fast it can grow from a seed to a seed-producing plant in as little as 35 days, making it the speed demon of the plant world. It was first developed as a research tool for biologists anxious to see the real-life manifestations of their genetic tinkering.

But this variant of wild mustard is better known to many as Fast Plants, and has blossomed in the last decade into one of the most successful and widely used organisms in science classrooms worldwide.

“There is this tremendous need for living material,” says Paul Williams, a retired University of Wisconsin–Madison professor of plant pathology who left his faculty duties behind 15 years ago to tend to what has become a small industry based on the rapid-cycling plant.

The little plant developed by Williams has become a phenomenon in the world of science education. Textbook publishers and science curriculum developers are beating paths to Williams’ door. Carolina Biological, one of the largest distributors of science education materials to teachers, features 10 pages of Fast Plants products in its catalog ranging from seeds and watering systems to dried bees for making pollinating “bee sticks.”

Williams estimates that Fast Plants are now used by as many as 10 million students each year. Nearly 70,000 teachers have been trained in their use as learning tools and every day requests for seeds, instructional materials and training pour in to Fast Plants headquarters in Science House on the UW–Madison campus.

“We’ve been so lucky,” says Williams. “When we started doing this, it became part of a larger sea change in the way biology is taught.”

Indeed, in addition to the speedy plants’ use in tens of thousands of U.S. elementary, middle and high school classrooms, they have been incorporated into the curriculums of entire countries, including the United Kingdom and Australia. Their use is widespread in Canada. European, Asian and South American countries have sent representatives to Madison to explore how they, too, might include the rapid-cycling plants in science lesson plans and curricula.

Fast Plants have even been lofted into orbit, flying six missions in specialized growth chambers aboard the space shuttle, the International Space Station and Russia’s MIR as part of NASA’s extensive classroom education projects.

The educational value of Fast Plants, like their worth as research tools, lies in their ability to cycle quickly from seed to seed-producing plant. Given their rapid-fire life cycle, it is possible for students to track genetic and other changes through several generations in a given school term.

“They’re very inexpensive and they’re very accessible,” says Williams, who oversees his not-for-profit Fast Plants empire from the converted studio now called Science House.

The Fast Plants team — Williams, Williams’ wife Coe and colleague Dan Lauffer — daily responds to a flood of faxes, e-mails and phone calls from teachers and students seeking access to Fast Plant materials and teaching tools.

A respected research scientist, Williams left the lab bench behind to devote his time to developing cheap, easy-to-use tools and organisms for science education. The basic premise, he says, is to – literally and figuratively – infuse life into science curricula.

“We measure our success by how much our ideas are adopted and adapted,” Williams explains. “We’re gradually learning how to teach science, how to harness these plants to ideas and make science come alive for students.”

The plants are used to teach many of the basic concepts of biology, covering ground that includes issues of growth and development, reproduction, plant physiology, Mendelian and non-Mendelian genetics, ecology, and evolution.

The underpinning philosophy of the Fast Plants program, says Williams, is to constantly develop new, innovative, inexpensive and fun ways to teach basic plant biology. He points to the rapid pace of scientific discovery and the pervasive societal influence of science as drivers for revamped efforts to better engage students in science.

“Every plant system has something interesting,” says Williams. “Our program with Fast Plants has been able to help some teachers change the way they teach biology. It helps minimize some of the baggage that can burden good teachers.”

Despite more than a decade of success with Fast Plants, Williams feels that his drive to liven up biology in the classroom may just be beginning to yield what he calls the “compound interest” of his biology education evangelism.

“The major textbook authors are now talking to us. When you reach the textbook, maybe you’ve arrived. We think we can improve on the way biology is taught. It’s in everybody’s interest to accomplish that.”