Teaching Resources and Ideas for Including Plant Pathology in the Plant Biology Curriculum

Carol M. Stiles, Dept. of Plant Pathology, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL.

A poster for the Project Kaleidoscope Summer Institute 2000, "The Future of Plant Biology,"

July 23-26, Keystone, CO.

Introduction

The purpose of this informal poster is to compile a list of resources for teaching plant pathology and for including plant pathology in a plant biology curriculum and in introductory biology. The resources listed here emphasize the importance of plants to society, and point out a few of the efforts being made to broaden the appeal of plant pathology to all educational levels – K-12, undergraduate, graduate and lifelong learning.

The poster is also a reflection of a slight career change for me. My graduate degrees and post-doctoral training are in plant pathology research, then I taught for three-plus years at a regional liberal arts university (Dept. of Biology, Valdosta State University, Valdosta, GA). Recently, however, I have moved to a new position in the Dept. of Plant Pathology at the University of Florida. My position is 70% teaching, 30% research – a split that is unusual in a plant pathology department, but may become more common as the need and demand for teaching grows. So, I am combining my teaching experience in biology with working to incorporate various teaching techniques into my plant pathology courses at the University of Florida.

I hope you find this list of resources helpful. If I can provide further information please feel free to contact me. The resources are available as a handout, or if you will contact me by e-mail (cstiles@ufl.edu), I will send you the websites in an e-mail message or attached file.

APSnet Education Center -- http://www.apsnet.org/education

The American Phytopathological Society

Editor-in-chief: Dr. Gail Schumann, University of Massachusetts

This new site (opens in August) has great resources for teaching and learning in plant pathology, for all educational levels. Most materials will be freely accessible for use in enriching courses. Among the sections and links included, for different audiences:

• K-12 Plant Path-Ways to Biology
• Introductory Plant Pathology
• Advanced Plant Pathology
• Instructor Communication and Scholarship

The "Instructor Communication and Scholarship" page will provide opportunities for the exchange of ideas: a place to present peer-reviewed teaching notes and full-length articles, and to obtain information on upcoming meetings and activities. The "K-12 Plant Path-Ways to Biology" will include a bulletin board to post experiences with the laboratory exercises and other ideas, and a list of available mentors for K-12 teachers.

Other online resources and plant pathology-related websites

The American Phytopathological Society webpage can currently be found at: http://www.apsnet.org/. It offers thorough and informative "Feature Articles" on various topics, and, of course, access to many other resources for those interested in plant pathology.

The Plant Pathology Internet Guidebook, by Dr. Thorsten Kraska, Institut für Pflanzenkrankheiten (Institute for Plant Diseases), University of Bonn, Germany. This page is a "subject oriented internet resource guide" for plant pathology, applied entomology, and all related fields." It includes sections on Teaching, Courses & Education, Software, Glossaries & Dictionaries that are useful in teaching plant biology. The American version of this website is hosted by the American Phytopathological Society at: http://www.scisoc.org/ppigb/

The International Society of Plant Pathology will hold an online Instructional Technology Symposium, from May 15th to June 30, 2001. It will be an opportunity for instructors to discuss ideas for teaching plant pathology, as well as provide a forum for discussing issues related to using technology in teaching, such as "Support (funding and/or technical) for New Teaching Projects and Their On-going Maintenance, Copyright Issues, Academic Recognition of Instructional Technology, Instructional Technology in Resource-Poor Countries." Further information and an invitation to join is given at http://www.ispp-itsymposium.org.nz/

Plants, Pathogens, and People: This website from the University of Illinois, Dept. of Crop Sciences, by Cleo D’Arcy and Darin Eastburn, includes online simulations of experiments – a "Virtual Classroom" - based on two diseases, late blight of potato and Dutch Elm disease. Participants can record their information in a lab notebook, setup experiments, and observe results. The site is located at: http://www.outreach.uiuc.edu/PPP/

Plant Pathology Courses for Agricultural Awareness, a journal article by Gail L. Schumann and Cleo D’Arcy, published in Plant Disease 83:492-501. This article will be available through the APSnet Education Center described above.

Plants, Plagues, and People – This is a distance education course offered by the Dept. of Plant Pathology, University of Florida (tuition-based), taught online by Carlye Baker (the course is also available on the University of Florida campus taught by F.W. Zettler – it enrolls 300 plus students!). It is a good example of an interdisciplinary course that emphasizes plants, agriculture, and the effect of plant diseases on food supply, human populations and societies. The introductory web page can be found at http://plantpath.ifas.ufl.edu/distance2000/

My contact information: Carol Stiles, cstiles@ufl.edu, Department of Plant Pathology,

University of Florida, P.O. Box 110680, Gainesville, FL 32611-0680.

Departmental website: http://plantpath.ifas.ufl.edu/ (Includes information on our new interdisciplinary Doctor of Plant Medicine (DPM) professional degree – a program involving graduate coursework and internships in various plant health areas).

Acknowledgements: My thanks to Gail Schumann, Editor-in-Chief, APSnet Education Center, for advance information regarding this valuable new resource, as well as the announcement regarding the ISPP online Instructional Technology Symposium.