Believing that young people need to be educated about the vital role plants play in the world's food, energy and climate-change problems, researchers Erich Grotewold and Jelena Brkljacic aim to make plants an integral part of the K-12 curriculum through the "Green K-12+" initiative.

They are well-positioned to do so. Grotewold is director of the Arabidopsis Biological Resource Center (ABRC) and the Center for Applied Plants Sciences (CAPS), and Brkljacic is ABRC assistant director.

Brkljacic and Emma Knee, ABRC DNA stock curator, developed the "Greening the Classroom" pilot program in 2009, which was approved by the Columbus City Schools (CCS) District Curriculum Committee as part of the biology curriculum in March, 2011.

"Greening the Classroom" is a series of safe and easy to use hands-on exercises that help explain basic scientific concepts to students. They work with the plant model, Arabidopsis thaliana, called the "fruit-fly" of the plant kingdom, because its short life cycle makes it perfect for genetics studies.

Brkljacic said, "We want to give students an opportunity to appreciate the potential of plants to address critical global issues, such as food and fuel crises and climate change, by performing fun and exciting hands-on exercises"

A recent grant from the American Society of Plant Biologists (ASPB) funds "TRAINED: Translating Research on Arabidopsis into a Network of EDucational resources—a central hub for linking, searching and ordering Arabidopsis educational resources, and integrating K-12 and undergraduate education initiatives.

"We see TRAINED as an opportunity to have the Arabidopsis Biological Resource Center (ABRC), the Center for Applied Plant Sciences (CAPS) and Ohio State become key players in the arena of green STEM K-12 education," Grotewold said.

The first TRAINED Ideation Workshop on Saturday, December 3^rd (8 am – 5 pm at the Fawcett Center) brings together scientists, teachers, education specialists, and graduate students from Ohio State, Ohio University, Indiana University, Virginia Tech, and the University of Georgia, as well as representatives from the award-winning online education initiatives, "Science Buddies" http://www.sciencebuddies.org) and "Planting Science" (http://www.plantingscience.org) to identify possible solutions for challenges associated with developing this education initiative.

A follow-up meeting in May, 2012 will train 15-20 CCS teachers to perform "Greening the Classroom" exercises, which is expected to affect an estimated 500 students in the CCS district. These local efforts will provide a model for the integration of "Greening the Classroom" into K-12 curriculum across the nation and serve as a platform for adopting plant models in education.