Green wall

Initial situation

This project was developed within the framework of the practical work (TP) integrated into the compulsory course for first year biology students. Among the 12 sessions of practical work in fundamental biology III, 5 sessions are dedicated to biodiversity and evolution, with a strong emphasis on the field of plant biology.

Until 2017, students used prepared materials (microscope slides) and had only one type of work to do (scientific drawings). In order to make their learning more active, students now discover the subject and the different concepts through different pedagogical activities: a quiz and a game linked to an exhibition as well as the setting up and observation of a plant wall. This approach allows for active learning.

Project implementation

More than 80 different species, representing more than 40 classes of plants, are on display in the PT room. Some of these plants have been grown in the Plant Biology Department’s growth chambers, others have been provided courtesy of the Botanical Garden. Students are free to browse, observe, touch, and ask questions about these plants throughout the sessions.

Students are invited to play the game “trivial evolution: plants” developed by the Conservatory, Botanical Garden, Bioutils and the School of DNA. The game is presented in the form of a trivial pursuit with a game board and cards of different families. With the help of the pedagogical booklet accompanying the game, students answer the questions asked and discover the phylogeny of plants.

Students are asked to answer a 15-question quiz based on their observations of the exhibition, the instructions in the game’s teaching booklet, and their research in the manuals and identification keys provided. Students are encouraged to work independently, with assistants and teachers present to guide them in their search for information. Students are also encouraged to write their own questions.

Following these activities, the teaching team proposed that students participate in the manual installation of plants on a plant wall structure. The teaching team had a plant wall structure built and installed on felt. The conceptualization and construction of this structure was carried out by the Public Establishments for Integration (EPI), under the direction of Sébastien Polli, allowing for the creation of a link between the university and this establishment that contributes to social and professional integration. A green wall is a vertical structure, natural or artificial, on which plants grow. At the end of the session, the students are invited to choose one or more of the plants exposed during the session and install it on the structure. The teacher explains the wall, the light and humidity gradients, and guides them to place the plants. The interaction between students and teachers is privileged here, and allows students to develop their own reflections.

The installation of the plants on the wall is carried out during the first of the 5 lab sessions. The student indicates his/her name next to the plant he/she places on the wall and can follow its development during the following lab sessions. This motivates the students to come back to the wall to see the adaptation of the plant they have chosen as well as the other plants and to ask themselves about their adaptation. As several plants of the same species were installed in different locations, corresponding to different light and humidity conditions, the live observation allows to deepen the concepts and knowledge presented in the first session.

Concerning the evaluation, the students have to give a quality work on all the practical exercises (answer the questions of the quiz, make the requested drawings and participate actively). During the final exam, the MCQ proposed includes one question per lab.

Thoughts and advice

In general, this teaching format allows students to be active during the practical work, to be involved (creation of questions and setting up of plants) and to have a more global vision of the subject. The teaching team has put in place a dynamic approach that favors active learning, encouraging students’ autonomy and curiosity. For the teachers, the change observed is an improvement in the dynamism and enthusiasm to lead and interact with the students.

Learning is encouraged by the combination of different approaches: the involvement of the students in the setting up and the follow-up of the plants as well as the spectacular aspect of the presence of the multitude of species in the room at the same time allows to stimulate the interest for the subject, the playful aspect of the game used helps to acquire knowledge often prejudged boring (classifications, nomenclature…), and the search for information to answer the questions of the quiz is an effective way to help the students to use different sources of information and to find answers in an autonomous way.

Concerning the plant wall, the teachers’ ambition is to create a second structure in order to keep a plant wall presenting the representative species of the major plant groups and to follow their development over several years (permanent exhibition), while the second structure would allow to work each year with the students for the implantation and the experimentation.

Student feedback

“Beyond the obvious fun aspect of learning in the form of a game, this practical work allowed the many students to visualize all the major plant families, to represent them with their main characteristics as well as the evolutionary relationships between them. To illustrate in a practical way the families seen during the rally, the room used for the practical work was completely transformed for the occasion. Numerous plants representing the main evolutionary axes and plant families were prepared especially for this exercise. They were arranged in an order following the evolutionary innovations and the students had to circulate between them in order to answer a questionnaire highlighting the key points to remember. The visual and sensory aspect of this method allowed the students to directly observe and compare, to make their own experience and hypotheses, guided by the questions. “The lab allowed us to discover plant diversity in a lively and entertaining way during our first year of biology at the University of Geneva: a large panel of plants selected in order to represent the diversity of each taxon described was presented (with the collaboration of the botanical garden of Geneva, rarely presented in 1st year biology), a quiz (linked to the exhibition) and a game allowed us a complete and affordable theoretical contribution for 1st year biology students, all this supervised by speakers.This was supervised by teachers and assistants who are specialists in a particular field of plant biology (Master’s students at the botanical garden, basic research in plant biology).