Knowplants.org - your source for plant science education and outreach

This primary goal of this website is to act as a repository for on-line resources that can be used for plant science education or outreach. If you have developed a resource that could be used for this purpose or you know a webpage that needs to be included here, please feel free to email us.

Plant science web directories

1. ❖UN Lincoln AgNIC - A comprehensive searchable list of plant science websites
2. ❖kid friendly version of the above resource
3. ❖Scott's botanical list - very comprehensive categorised collection of plant science websites
4. ❖Botany directory listings
5. ❖Google

Plant species databases 

Comprehensive databases

1. ❖USDA Plants Database - Search for information about a plant species of your choice or plant species in your state and more...
2. ❖Neoflora - [DEAD LINK!] Claims to be the world's largest plant database
3. ❖Dave's Garden - Look up information about a plant species of choice (has links to commerical seed vendors)
4. ❖UConn Plant database - Search for plant species with traits you like (e.g. evergreen shrub with yellow flowers)
5. ❖Database of plant databases - Search for plant databases by name or content
6. ❖USDA Forest service plant database - Search for information about a plant species of choice by name or trait
7. ❖International plant names index - Search and download plant information in different formats
8. ❖TROPICOS - A plant information database from the Missouri Botanical Garden
   

Specialized databases

1. ❖Crop database - an alphabetic list of crop plants and information about them
2. ❖Plant Care - Database of indoor plants and information on plant care
3. ❖Conifers - Database of gymnosperms (non flowering plants)
4. ❖Carnivorous plants - Database of carnivorous plants by International Carnivorous Plants Society
5. ❖Poisonous plants - List of poisonous plants and symptoms from Cornell University
6. ❖Tropical plants - List of tropical plants (The Amazon plants)
7. ❖Plants for a future - Search information about useful plants by name or use (informative, but no images)
8. ❖Phytochemical and Ethnobotanical databases - Searchable databases to identify plants producing phytochemicals having specific activities (e.g. anti cancer compounds, antioxidants)
   

Native / invasive plant databases

United States

1. ❖Plant species in your state - Arizona (in progress) - California - Florida - Illinois - Iowa - Maine - Michigan - Minnesota - Oklahoma - Oregan - South Carolina - Texas - Washington -  Wisconsin 
2. ❖List of state native plant societies (Thanks to South Carolina native plant society)
   
3. ❖Invasive plant species - USDA list of invasive plant databases
   
4. ❖Invasive plant species of the United States - from New York Botanical Garden
   

Canada

1. ❖Native plants of Canada - Listings by province
   
2. ❖Invasive species of Canada - search for invasive species in Canada 
   

Other

1. ❖Global invasive species database - Search by country and/or type of life form
   
2. ❖Australian Network for Plant Conservation - Native plant species of Australia

Weed Identification guides

1. ❖Weed science Society of America
   
2. ❖UIUC (Illionis) weed id guide
   
3. ❖Virginia Tech weed id guide
   
4. ❖Iowa state weed id guide
   
5. ❖UC Davis weed id guide
   
6. ❖Weeds Australia
   
7. ❖Mizzou weed id guide
   
8. ❖South Dakota State University weed guide
   
9. ❖Poison Ivy, Summac and Oak
   
10. ❖Facts, Pictures and info (by Jim Dunphy) - user submitted pictures and identification
11. ❖Medicinenet - Identification and remedies
12. ❖Poison-ivy.org - Seasonal images, Identification poster and control services
13. ❖UFL's extension page - diagrams and descriptions of all three plants
14. ❖Bay Area Medical Information - pictures and info on all three plants

Herbaria and Institutes

1. ❖Herbaria directory - Searchable directory from the New York botanical gardens (The search engine is not very friendly; e.g. recognises 'U.S.A', but not 'USA').
   
2. ❖Internet Directory for Botany - List of botanical gardens and arboreta
   
3. ❖Additional directories
   
1. ❖Google
   
2. ❖Garden Web
   
3. ❖Botanical gardens in Australia 
4. Careers in plant science
   
5. ❖ASPB job bank - Job database and career discussion from the American Society of Plant Biologists
   
6. ❖Careers in botany - Plant science career advise from the Botanical Society of America
7. ❖Research careers in plant science -  A nice article from Science magazine's career resources
8. ❖Careers in Plant Pathology - Know about becoming an expert on plant disease

1. Teaching resources 
   

K-12

1. ❖Plants for kids - A list of websites providing information about plant science; aimed at kids
2. ❖SAPS - Science and Plants for Schools; initiative between scientists and teachers to improve plant science education
3. ❖Scholastic - Books about plants
4. ❖MN Dept of Natural resources - Activities for teaching plant science
5. ❖Teachnology - Plant science themes
6. ❖Education World - Teaching plant science
7. ❖Proteacher - Plant science teaching activity ideas
8. ❖Teacher's guide - Plant flowers
9. ❖Boring botany - How to make botany interesting to students?
10. ❖Songs for teaching - A song about plants and animals
11. ❖emints - List of useful plant science teaching resources on the internet 
12. ❖Mad Scientist Network - Teachers/Students can ask questions about science
13. ❖ASPB Education foundation -  List of resources including some excellent radio shows and podcasts
14. ❖Virtual herbarium (CSU, Aus) - Nice resource to learn leaf structure, has pictures of different types of leaves
15. ❖Supermarket botany - nice teaching resource to help teach plant parts. incl. work sheets as well.
16. ❖Ticklemeplant - Buy gift packs of 'tickleme' plant (Mimosa pudica).
17. ❖UC, Davis - SEED curriculum for grade school
18. ❖Plant Biology for kids - nice list of plant biology resources aimed at kids (suggested by a Fourth grade student)
19. ❖Serenata Flowers - Guide to Pollination

Science Fair Projects

1. ❖USDA - Agriculture science fair projects
2. ❖Discovery Education - List of plant science fair ideas
3. ❖About.com - includes additional links as well
4. ❖Few additional sites: Crystal clear - All science fair projects - AgClassroom
   
5. ❖Science Buddies - Includes information about how to design a project
6. ❖USDA Science fair project ideas 

Undergraduate Education

1. ❖National Biological Information Infrastructure - List of categorised teaching resources for botany (check links on the left side)
2. ❖Botany on-line - Internet text book of botany (covers a range of topics)
3. ❖UCLA general botany - Website detailing plant structures; has many sublinks and pictures
4. ❖Seed biology - all about seeds: structure, physiology and processes
5. ❖Botanical Society of America - Tips on teaching plant science
6. ❖Misconceptions to avoid while teaching botany - Article 1, Article 2
   
7. ❖Newsgroup - Bionet newsgroup about plant science education
8. ❖American Journal of botany - Teaching plant science in the 21st century (Richards and Lee 2002)
9. ❖TIEE - teaching issues and experiments in ecology
10. ❖Classical Genetics Simulator - simulates genetics inheritance including linkage over generations; customizable teaching tool.
11. ❖Virtual crops (UC, Davis) - Anatomy and other info for tomato, rice, cotton and grapes
    

Arabidopsis teaching resources

1. ❖PREP (Virginia Tech) - Online lab notebook, promotes communication between scientists and high school techers, students
2. ❖Greenomes - Lab and bioinformatics exercises that introduce genetics and genome to students 
3. ❖Arabidopsis.org - List of useful Arabidopsis teaching resources 
4. ❖Enhancer trap lines - Different tissue-specific expression patterns useful for teaching (Geisler et al. 2002. Plant Physiology)
   
5. ❖efp browser - Pictographic representation of gene expression data for Arabidopsis
6. ❖Lehle  seeds - Arabidopsis/plant biology teaching resources
7. ❖ Seeds for teaching - Lehle, NASC
   

Gardening/Urban plants

1. ❖Garden forever - Resource website for gardening related information
2. ❖Serenata Flowers - Plants and Gardening for kids
   
3. ❖Community Forestry - A resource from Cornell Univ to help communities manage their urban trees
   

Multimedia

Photos

1. ❖Plant images - An organized collection of plant images from the Botanical Society of America
   
2. ❖Noble foundation plant image gallery - searchable collection of images of plants and plant cells
   
3. ❖Plant facts - collection of images searchable by keyword 
   
4. ❖Floral images - a collection of flowers in North-Western Europe, particularly the British Isles 
   
5. ❖Plant pictures - collection of plant images catergorised by families (mostly native wild plants)
   
6. ❖ Plant image databases - Long list of plant image databases (some links are outdated/slow) 
   
7. ❖Image Bank - another list of plant image databases
   
8. ❖Dennis Kunkel Microscopy - Nice collection of micrographs of plants (strictly requires written permission before use even for educational purposes)
   
9. ❖Science Photo Library - Plant science related images searchable based on country
   
10. ❖FotoSearch - A collection of searchable images (includes lots of non-scientific images which may be useful for a presentation)
    
11. ❖CanStockPhoto - offers professional royalty free stock images starting at $1. might require free membership for lower price.
12. ❖Flowerinfo - beautiful pictures of a number of flowers and background information about flower types/groups.
13. ❖ArtPlantae Today - Information on plant art, events etc. Companion website (ArtPlantae Books)
14. ❖Cells - a collection of high resolution images of plant cells and organelles from the Danforth Plant Science Center

Videos

1. ❖Plants in motion - a collection of video recordings of plant movements
2. ❖PBS teacher source - Collection of videos and techer guides (Select age category and subject to see the list of materials)
3. ❖Library video - a collection of plant science videos for purchase (different choices available for different age groups/purpose)
4. ❖Stock photography - collection of plant videos

Animations

1. ❖Wisconsin on-line - collection of learning objecs (animations) that can be used for teaching (requires free registration and permission to use)
2. ❖U Alberta Instructional multimedia - Animations about botany, cell biology, genetics, microbiology etc.
3. ❖Educypedia - A long list of links to biology animations
4. ❖Virtual plants - a neat resource from INRA, France and Univ of Queensland; has plant animations
5. ❖Library of crop technology - some neat animated lessons on plant biology
6. ❖Science animations - List of science animations useful for teaching (incl. plant biology)
7. ❖Cells alive - a collection of interactive images, animations and videos of cells and microbes (includes a plant cell too)
8. ❖Wiley Interscience - Interactive animations about cells
9. ❖Science Learning Network - List of useful science learning links
10. ❖Life cycle - Animations about life cycles of different organisms 
11. ❖Edumedia - A few nice plant animations (free light version; full version needs subscription)
12. ❖Micrometeorology - Animations about plant water relations
13. ❖Science Optics - Zoom in from space to the nucleus of a carbon atom in the DNA of an oak tree's epidermal cell in Florida! (Cool?)
    

Games

1. ❖Planet Biotech - a suite of three interactive games to learn about plant biotechnology (under development)
   
2. ❖Ecokids - A few games about plants and ecology
   
3. ❖Bet on the farm - Try virtual farming in Ohio, manage a farm and see how you fare!
   
4. ❖Simfarm - manage a farm with crops and animals (from the makers of simcity)
   
5. ❖JC-schools - a collection of games and teaching materials from various sources about plants
   
6. ❖Wild kids - fun discovery about nature (UNDER CONSTRUCTION!)
   
7. ❖picadome - Collection of educational activities and games about plants
   
8. ❖Primary games - Few word and puzzle games about plants