Handbook:Example 1 The plants of the school garden

The identification of the plants of the school garden has been the most adopted pedagogical scenario in KeyToNature with a tremendous success in more than 200. primary and secondary schools. Keys for schools are produced following a standardised process:

1 Overview

Identify the plants that can be found in the school garden.

2 School level

Possible for primary and secondary school. Also adaptable for basic university courses on principles of identification.

3 Identification tools

Dryades identification key especially developed for the school involved. For primary schools the sample is usually less then 50 species. Secondary schools can handle a larger number of species in the key.

5 Preparation

1. Teachers contact Dryades
2. A local expert from the Dryades network "adopts" the school. Experts are usually professors, university students or amateurs which are skilled enough for contributing to the project.
3. The expert, together with teachers, produces a list of organisms (e.g. trees and shrubs of the school garden).
4. The list is sent to Dryades, which, in a few days, generates a first draft of the key immediately available in the web: See here an example.
5. The URL, together with a paper-printed version of the key [click here for an example], is sent back to teachers and expert.
6. Teachers and expert can modify the key, optimising it to their educational purposes, e.g. modifying terminology, introducing new species, or suggesting changes in the iconography.
7. The proposed changes are applied to the key by Dryades.
8. The key, in its final version, is officially published on-line in the Web pages of Dryades. At the end of this process, teachers receive also a CD-Rom version of the key, and, upon request, a Smart phone version. Both teachers and experts become co-authors of the key.

At the beginning of 2008, a new feature has been developed. Now teachers can have, upon request, also a package of tools based on a copy of the key that is published on-line.

This package permits further modifications: changes in the dichotomies, introduction of notes and comments to the species, and the generation of a completely original iconographic archive, also with pictures made by pupils. The package can be used to involve students in the development of their own keys. The key modified with this package is not automatically published on the Web pages of Dryades, being visible only by the school.

6 Background information

It is essential to have basic knowledge on identification and identification characters. The K2N project has developed two tutorials on identification. There you can find the background information you need.

• Identification Quiz: “The main characters of plant leaves”, produced by the department of life sciences at the University of Trieste: [To be linked…]
• Learning unit on identification FIM / FAU: [ Currently password protected ILIAS resource…]
• Quiz on identification of trees [ Currently password protected ILIAS resource…]

7 Summarising the experience

Since the beginning of 2007, Dryades started a cooperation with teachers from schools of all levels, producing keys centred on small areas, which contain from less than 50 (first level schools) to more than 500 species (high schools and Universities). Their effectiveness as a new approach to teaching and learning biodiversity has been successfully tested by KeyToNature in more than 200 schools of 11 European countries. Report on the experiences from the field will be soon available on this site.