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Teaching Section

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Goals

  1. To provide a forum in which to discuss successful teaching methods
  2. To offer workshops on teaching methods
  3. To provide pedagogical tools for botany instructors

Nominations for Magister Award are due at end of January

If you wish to nominate an extraordinary teacher for the society’s Magister Award please consult the Awards Section of the website. Applications are due end of January.

2023-2024 News and activities of the Teaching Section

We are still looking for a co-chair and other colleagues to help with the CBA Teaching Section, so please reach out if you are interested (Dr. Laura Super leslaura@gmail.com; Dr. Mihai Costea mcostea@wlu.ca). Section Chairs are not elected and the role of this position is flexible. As you know, CBA Sections have one annual meeting during the conference of that particular year, they may organize different events. Also Chairs keep their Section webpage updated, write announcements of articles for the Bulletin, and in general, pursue any initiative compatible with the interests of the Section.   

There are two main activities to announce for 2023-2024: on phytobiome outreach and the Kindness Project.

1. Phytobiomes

Phytobiomes are plants, their associated organisms and the environment. Laura Super and colleagues are co-creating phytobiomes outreach series events for adults and families (children and youth); the two groups involved in material development are the Phytobiome Research Working Group and the Pacific Spirit Park Society. These events run January to April 2024 (with possibility for summer). The events focus on phytobiomes, authentic science exploration, best data practices and experiential inquiry. So far, people have loved learning as scientists.

Some of the events are in person collecting plant data in Pacific Spirit Regional Park and doing Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics and Arts (STEAM) activities (such as poetry, drawing, etc.). As well as the wonderful world of plants, we are going over through activities in person and on Zoom: ways to combat hype in science, the importance of critical thinking in science, why focusing on accuracy in science is so important, why useful data matters in science and the messiness of science. We have upcoming Zoom data meetings in February and March to data check, discuss about data and more with K-12 to adult participants to improve science and data literacy. We welcome any CBA members to come to our Zoom events and join us! You can watch or help us co-create.

Dr. Laura Super in her element 🙂

2. Kindness Project

The Kindness Project is an initiative to increase kindness in academic and world culture. Laura Super and colleagues are co-creating material on topics such as anti-ableism, climate kindness pedagogy, and other topics. This is an international, trans-disciplinary initiative and is beyond just the botany community but there are multiple CBA members who attend.

We welcome anyone who wants to join us, CBA and beyond, on Zoom; we have regular meetings! These meetings are a great way to bring any issue you care about, positive solutions and actions; we will help you turn ideas into action. We facilitate ideas discussion and are a collective and network of concerned faculty, staff, students and off campus partners.

Teaching Resources