The course map.
Eight units — four per semester — the labs that anchor them, and the two-day rhythm that runs every week of the year. This is the planner’s view — the whole course on one page.
Two days a week, and the work between them.
Every unit runs on the same rhythm: Concept Day → [student works at home] → Experiment Day → [student synthesizes at home] → next Concept Day. One day forces a choice between depth and breadth; two days allow both. More than two crowds out the at-home work where integration actually happens.
Concept Day
- Arrival & warm-up — reconnect with the prior session
- Pre-lecture discussion — surface what the at-home reading raised
- Direct instruction — micro-lectures, worked problems, demonstrations
- Problem set / model work — apply the concept, solo or in pairs
- Misconception sweep & wrap-up — correct common errors, preview the lab
Guide's role: Socratic and diagnostic. Student's role: active participation; pre-reading required.
Experiment Day
- Pre-lab briefing — the question, the procedure, the safety
- Safety check — goggles and gloves for dissection, sharps care with scalpels & blades; explicit, every time
- Setup — microscopes, specimens, dissection kits, partner assignment
- Execution — the lab itself; the guide circulates and coaches
- Debrief & lab notebook — completed before the student leaves
- Cleanup & specimen disposal — to standard; non-negotiable
Guide's role: safety officer first, teacher second. Student's role: the lab notebook is THE artifact — predictions before results.
From the plant cell to whole ecosystems.
The sequence is deliberate: each unit assumes the one before it. Click any unit to open its mastery rubric — the standard a student demonstrates against to advance.
| Unit | Big ideas | Anchor lab(s) | Integrates with |
|---|---|---|---|
| 01 · Plant Cells & Tissues | The plant cell, cell wall & vacuole, chloroplasts & plastids, meristematic vs. dermal, ground & vascular tissue | Microscopy of plant cells & tissues (epidermis peel, stomata, xylem) | Robert Hooke names the “cell” from cork (history, reading); microscopy technique; scale & magnification math |
| 02 · Roots, Stems & Leaves | Root & shoot systems, primary & secondary growth, leaf anatomy, xylem & phloem organization | Leaf & root structure dissection; stem cross-sections under the scope | The early plant anatomists (history, writing); comparative anatomy; measuring growth rates |
| 03 · Photosynthesis & Plant Energy | Light & Calvin reactions, chloroplast function, pigments, C3 / C4 / CAM, cellular respiration | Photosynthesis rate (floating-disk assay); leaf-pigment chromatography | Priestley & Ingenhousz discover photosynthesis; van Helmont’s willow (history); rate & gas-volume math |
| 04 · Water & Nutrient Transport | Water potential, transpiration & cohesion-tension, stomatal control, phloem translocation, mineral nutrition | Transpiration & capillary transport (potometer) | Stephen Hales measures sap flow (history); the physics of capillarity; water-potential calculation |
| 05 · Plant Growth & Hormones | Auxins, gibberellins, cytokinins, ethylene & abscisic acid; tropisms; photoperiodism | Tropism & germination experiments (phototropism, gravitropism) | Darwin’s phototropism experiments (history, reading); growth-curve math |
| 06 · Flowers, Seeds & Fruit | Flower structure, pollination & fertilization, seed & fruit development, alternation of generations | Flower dissection & pollination study | Gregor Mendel’s pea garden (history, reading, writing); genetics ignored until 1900; probability, ratios & the chi-square test |
| 07 · Plant Diversity & Classification | Bryophytes to angiosperms, monocots vs. dicots, taxonomy & phylogeny, dichotomous keys | Dichotomous-key plant identification | Linnaeus & binomial naming (history); building & using keys; cladistics & tree-reading |
| 08 · Plants, Ecosystems & People | Plants in ecosystems, primary productivity, agriculture & crops, conservation | Seed dispersal & fruit survey; productivity estimate | Borlaug & the Green Revolution (history, economics, ethics); engineering; yield & productivity math |
Every unit carries the core spokes — History, Reading, and Writing — anchored to the story in the integration guide. The column above names each unit’s distinctive spokes; geography and soft social studies run where they fit, and students pick from elective spokes (data, ethics, economics, technology, art). An applied-math lane runs through every unit too — math used in service of the science, never as a separate program.
Where mastery gets proven in person.
Three times across the year, the student steps up to a demonstration that cannot be faked, outsourced, or generated. These are the AI-proof core of the course — understanding, shown in real time, against a rubric, in front of a guide.
Plant dissection defense
Dissect a flower, seed, or stem, name each structure, and defend its function out loud, under questions.
Timed plant identification
Key out unknown plants and structures with a dichotomous key — naming and justifying each step, under time pressure.
Oral lab-notebook defense
Walk a guide through your own notebook: the question, the method, the data, the anomalies, the interpretation.