“Analysis of Children's Drawings to Gain Insight into Plant Blindness” with Dr. Christina Hargiss and Dr. Paula Comeau

Plant blindness is a phenomenon that, despite its name, has nothing to do with whether or not plants can see. It is actually defined as our inability to see or value the plants around us. Interdisciplinary researchers Drs. Christina Hargiss and Paula Comeau have spent a lot of time digging down to the “roots” of this problem, with research touching anything from psychology to history, cryptography, literature, art and more. This episode, we discuss their work studying plant blindness and mental models in children’s art.

Listen to this two part episode to learn more about:

• What plant blindness is
• How child psychology and plant blindness research overlap
• What hurdles researchers face when working with younger study groups
• How you can fight plant blindness using your grocery store
• What witch trials, Harry Potter, confederate armies, and cryptography have to do with plant blindness
• What the next steps are in plant blindness research

If you would like more information about this topic, this episode’s paper is available here: https://doi.org/10.4195/nse2019.05.0009 

It will be freely available from 4 March to 18 March, 2020.

If you would like to find transcripts for this episode or sign up for our newsletter, please visit our website: http://fieldlabearth.libsyn.com/

Contact us at [email protected] or on Twitter @FieldLabEarth if you have comments, questions, or suggestions for show topics, and if you want more content like this don’t forget to subscribe.

If you would like to reach out to Christina, you can find her here: [email protected]

If you would like to reach out to Paula, you can find her here: [email protected]

Resources

CEU Quiz Part 1: http://www.agronomy.org/education/classroom/classes/784

CEU Quiz Part 2: http://www.agronomy.org/education/classroom/classes/785

CSA News article, “Plant Blindness: How Seeing Green Creates Cultural Disengagement with Agriculture": https://doi.org/10.1002/csan.20056

“Challenges Conducting Research with Adolescents in Public Schools” by Kory Bonnell: dx.doi.org/10.4195/nse2018.01.0002

NDSU Twitter: @NDSU

NDSU Natural Resources Management Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ndsu.nrm/

NDSU School of Natural Resource Sciences Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SNRSatNDSU/

Minnesota Scientific and Natural Areas Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MinnesotaSNAs

Minnesota Scientific and Natural Areas website: https://www.dnr.state.mn.us/snas/index.html

Carnegie Museum of Natural History article by Patrick McShea: https://carnegiemnh.org/plant-blindness/

BBC Article by Christine Ro: https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20190425-plant-blindness-what-we-lose-with-nature-deficit-disorder

Plant Science Bulletin: https://www.botany.org/bsa/psb/2001/psb47-1.pdf

“Botany and environmental education in elementary school in Brazil: Articulating knowledge, values, and procedures” by Loureiro and Dal-Farra. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13504622.2017.1343280

Project Learning Tree: https://www.plt.org/                  

Project Food, Land, and People: http://www.ncagr.gov/SWC/educational/FLP.html

“Preventing Plant Blindness” paper about the poster by Schussler and Wandersee: https://abt.ucpress.edu/content/61/2/82

Native Ways of Knowing:  http://www.ankn.uaf.edu/curriculum/articles/barnhardtkawagley/indigenous_knowledge.html

Project Wet: https://www.projectwet.org/

Paperback book Lost Plant! by Elisabeth Schussler and Jim Wandersee: https://www.trafford.com/Bookstore/BookDetail.aspx?BookId=SKU-000199640

Prairie Preschool: https://www.dnr.state.mn.us/state_parks/event.html?id=60556

Growing Together Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GrowingTogetherND/

Growing Together article: https://www.inforum.com/lifestyle/home-and-garden/986012-Growing-Together-Fargos-successful-community-garden-uses-unique-growing-methods-%E2%80%94-and-we-can-all-join,

Growing Together, US initiative: https://ruralimmigration.net/project/growing-together/

Free Forest School: https://www.freeforestschool.org/

iNaturalist: https://www.inaturalist.org/

Grocery Store Mythbusters: https://msumspring2017generalbotany.wordpress.com/about/

Field, Lab, Earth is copyrighted to the American Society of Agronomy, Crop Science Society of America, and Soil Science Society of America.