Theme: Growing Cultural Understanding

Ethnobotany
The People-Plant Connection

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Classroom Profile: A Weed By Any Other Name
"Our school's focus on multiculturalism prompted my thinking about how we might use studies of the diversity of plants to help us appreciate human diversity," reports Chapel Hill, NC, fifth grade teacher Barbara Elder. With support from the local botanic garden, Barbara's students had explored plant habitats and adaptations as part of their ecology unit. Their intrigue with kudzu, an introduced plant that has become a pernicious weed in the South, provided a focus for a range of cultural, geographic, ecological, math, and other investigations.

"The kids here were familiar with kudzu, but didn't realize that it was actually imported from Japan to feed cattle and prevent soil erosion," says Barbara. Her class began questioning why it did so much better here that it became a nightmarish weed, then compared the latitude, climate, and other factors in both countries to make some inferences. They explored ways in which it was used in Japan - as a food source and thickener, then tried making their own stir-fries thickened with kudzu. "This got students curious about why we use cornstarch here instead of kudzu, which prompted an exploration of the economics of processing each plant." The 50-foot vines, she adds, also provided fertile ground for a variety of math challenges. The fast-growing, tenacious weed even became the inspiration for some creative writing, as students first brainstormed appropriate adjectives - out-of-control ... insane ... monstrous - to describe the plant, then created their own kudzu-based science fiction stories!

Classroom Profile: Herbal Village
To inspire creative problem-solving during an herb study, enrichment teacher Marge Tirpak of Aurora, OH, created an imaginary situation in which students were to be 17th century travelers shipwrecked in the New World, having salvaged only a wooden box of herbs. She charged students with developing a fictitious settlement (they named it Herbaria), then creating characters and journaling about why they had emigrated.

The herb plants and seeds students discovered in the box (such as basil, thyme, and lavender), prompted investigations and research on how to grow and propagate them, and what uses - culinary, decorative, medicinal, and so on - they might have for the colony. While the herbs grew in the GrowLab, Marge threw out occasional challenges such as sickness hitting the colony or holiday celebrations nearing, and encouraged students to research how herbs might be used in these contexts.

"The discovery that herbs did not only exist on spice racks amazed students and prompted their interest in growing them and discovering more uses," says Marge. "They began to examine household products such as shampoos, toothpastes, and cosmetics to search for herbal additives." A culminating herb fest featured student interpretations of their herbal adventures - from an original song to a skirt decorated with hand-printed herbs.

Biodiversity Matters
Scientists have learned to breed and engineer crops that can grow bigger and faster, and are disease resistant. But at what cost to our cultural and ecological diversity? Although there are certainly benefits to these advances, many experts are concerned that this focus on "engineered" plants has caused us to rely on too few species of crops and to lose vital genetic information available from naturally evolved plants. Another threat to "genetic diversity" is rapid deforestation, which destroys many wild species of plants. Some scientists are increasingly recognizing the importance of having access to wild native forms of plants and old varieties of cultivated plants - with genes for different types of natural resistance and defenses, nutritional value, medicinal potential, and so on - and are searching for wild plants and collecting and saving plants and plant varieties that people have cultivated for generations.

When plants or entire habitats are lost, we also often lose some of the knowledge, values, folklore, and even cultures associated with them. We can find evidence of loss of plants and plant diversity in our own backyards. Invite your students to explore this loss in their own lives and neighborhoods, and to consider actions they might take to preserve biodiversity. There are gardeners who recognize the historic and ecological significance of plant diversity who are working to grow, save, and maintain seeds of a diversity of garden and crop plants, to maintain these vital genetic resources.

Author: Eve Pranis

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Contents

1.	Introduction
2.	Ethnobotany
3.	Cultivating History Lessons
4.	Sowing Seeds of Understanding
5.	Cultivating Cross-Culturally
6.	Herbs in Colonial Life
7.	Herbal Adventures
8.	Historic Herbal Theme Gardens
9.	Resources

Kids' Multicultural Cookbook
Recipes and activities that make learning about different cultures a tasty treat.

Native American Seed Collection
Investigate Native American culture as your students raise traditional crops.

Plant Based Dye Kit
Study the historical and cultural uses of plants as dye sources.

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