Turned from teaching pure applied botany [for schoolchildren] (history, DIYs, current uses of plants, including space research (although one day I’m so going to build myself a desktop clinostat)) to quantitative botany. So far, two lectures (for a single brave 14-year-old). The first time, we talked about what is measurement and why there are so many ways to screw up when you have to measure something sufficiently abstract. The second time, about what people get to measure in different branches of botany, and prepared for our first lab (safety, background, etc.) It will be a comparison of two-three ways of staining fungi in roots (which would require us to 1) develop the protocols and 2) dye samples of a couple root systems to see if there is any difference), although just a phenomenological one—we’ll get back to sample size later on, after we get into ‘real statistics’.
Turned from teaching pure applied botany [for schoolchildren] (history, DIYs, current uses of plants, including space research (although one day I’m so going to build myself a desktop clinostat)) to quantitative botany. So far, two lectures (for a single brave 14-year-old). The first time, we talked about what is measurement and why there are so many ways to screw up when you have to measure something sufficiently abstract. The second time, about what people get to measure in different branches of botany, and prepared for our first lab (safety, background, etc.) It will be a comparison of two-three ways of staining fungi in roots (which would require us to 1) develop the protocols and 2) dye samples of a couple root systems to see if there is any difference), although just a phenomenological one—we’ll get back to sample size later on, after we get into ‘real statistics’.
In short: got myself a test subject! Yay!