Week 2: Plant terrariums, situate ferns & Coleus plants

Overview of this lab - read first

Prepare your live plants right away and take care of them so that they will survive the semester. You will need them throughout the course. You will be photographing them and sharing those images with descriptions according to the detailed instructions in the separate links below (Terrariums, Coleus Instructions, Fern Dish Instructions). Pay close attention to detailed lab instructions so you don't lose points by mistake. Keep your plants and lab materials away from pets. Ask me questions if you're not sure what to do or if you get stuck.

Points available for this lab:

1. Preparing your terrariums with moss, spike moss, and liverworts. Taking a photo and uploading it to Padlet. (2 points)

2. Situating your coleus plants in a nice bright window or with other light source and documenting with a Padlet post (1 point)

3. Situating your fern petri dishes with bright light and sticker. Document your fern petri dishes in Padlet (1 point)

Instructors:

See subheadings in menu at left for description of the 3 studies students start this week:

1. terrarium study,
2. fern spore dishes, and
3. Coleus care / grafting experiment.

They are starting these studies all now because they have just received their package of supplies, which includes living plant material for all three studies, and it's important to get the plants into light and appropriate conditions. It's important not to ship before the end of week 1, because if you ship before the end of drop-add, some students will drop after shipment has occurred, and you will lose those supplies.

In addition to the supplies listed for each study, I also ship students a timer so they can set a desk lamp up if they don't have a well-situated window (I don't supply the lamp).