Workshops:
Carol Stiff, President and CEO of Kitchen Culture Kits, Inc., continues to spread the word about micropropagation to teachers and hobbyists and others. Carol presented two workshops in the Phoenix area in February, one in Annapolis in June (Saturday before the SIVB meetings) and has other scheduled for Florida, New York, Wisconsin, Washington, and possibly Barbados. Workshop attendees consist of high school teachers, plant enthusiasts, nurserymen, medical doctors, college teachers, college students, administrators, computer engineers and even some junior high students. These workshops introduce people to the basics of micropropagation using very simple equipment and allow teachers, with very low budgets, to introduce plant tissue culture to their students. Contact Carol at [email protected] or visit her website for photos from the workshops: www.kitchenculturkit.com
Mentoring: Tissue Culture in the Classroom
Bridging the gap between the laboratory and the classroom is a major goal of SIVB. This was recently accomplished by the 5th grade class at Harts Hill Elementary School in Whitesboro, NY. Their teacher, Kathy Garbarino, an active member of the New York State African Violet Society, wanted to teach her students about an alternative method of plant propagation. She contacted Carol Stiff at Kitchen Culture Kits, Inc. and got a kit and instructions on how to do plant tissue culture in the classroom. The students set up their clean boxes, made media in the microwave and successfully cultured African violets. Dr. Stiff also connected Mrs. Garbarino with Dr. Chuck Maynard whose laboratory was not far from the grade school. In October 2004, the students took a field trip to the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry to visit Dr. Maynard’s lab. Dr. Maynard and his research associate, Linda Polin, showed the kids their “real” tissue culture lab and described the work they were doing to save Chestnut trees from blight. The whole project culminated in the class writing articles about their experience and having them published in the September issue of Empire Violet Magazine (June 2005 – Volume 51, Issue 2). Many thanks to Dr. Maynard and his team for helping these students realize the importance of science.
If you have been a mentor in a project like this, please contact Carol Stiff, [email protected] ,with the SIVB Education Committee and tell her about it. We would like to showcase your activities and encourage others to do similar projects.
SIVB goes to NABT
The SIVB Education Committee is sponsoring a workshop at the National Association of Biology teachers annual meeting in Milwaukee in October. Judi Heitz, Sylvia Mitchell, Gary Seckinger and Carol Stiff will present a three-hour workshop on Plant Tissue Culture Education: Kits Available for the K-14 Classroom. This workshop provides an introduction to plant tissue culture and then shows the various kits available for the classroom including a “do-it-yourself kit” that was developed in Jamaica . Each type of kit will be available for inspection. At the end of the workshop, we will have a drawing for the 20 donated kits so teachers can take these back to their classrooms and implement what they have learned. Companies donating kits are: Carolina Biological, Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Gardens-Center for Conservation and Research of Endangered Wildlife (CREW), Kitchen Culture Kits, Inc., Phytotechnology Laboratories, and Ward’s Scientific. See: www.nabt.org for details.
Carol Stiff, Education Committee Correspondent
