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Botany lab fifteen plant seek

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In spring 2024 and 2025 the final laboratory has been a weather dependent campus walkabout . During the drive into campus the thought came unbidden that what an ANR major faces after graduation is the question from friends and family, "What plant is this?" The presumption is that an agriculture major is an expert on plants. The usual twist on this is an email from a cousin in Hilo who need apwid for a local medicine treatment and wants to know if apwid can be found in Hilo. The idea of a twist on this concept flooded in on the heels of the above thought: a multilingual treasure hunt.  The premise was as follows: You are an ANR major and once you graduate, everyone thinks you are an expert in plants. You are to determine the name of the plant in your language, find the plant on campus, and bring back a leaf or other identifying characteristic of the plant. A Kosraean friend needs ingingkal. Find, collect, and bring back a leaf. A Pohnpeian friend needs omp. Find, c...
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Planets

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Planets had to be packed into a two day Friday - Monday sequence. Video playlist on Friday. Planets on the sidewalk Monday. This was first light for the new metric measuring wheel. This term 13 planets was remembered, just barely. The students concept of the solar system to scale. Planets massively too big, way too close. The new wheel has a kickstand and stands up! The wheel measures to the centimeter - the distance sheet could reworked. Out on the sidewalk at Uranus with Emensio and Unica.
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Floral litmus solutions

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This beauty soap would prove to be neutral. The soap had a gel like consistency. This term the rapitest digital pH probe was used to obtain the pH of the known acid and base.  The diluted lemon juice was 6.4. The dimethyl benzyl ammonium chloride cleaner was 9.3.  The lab cart was used to haul gear. This also helped immensely with the clean up. The kettle was preloaded Wednesday afternoon. As was the coffee maker. The flowers were Spathoglottis plicata gathered the evening before. Lemon was the known acid, although post hoc Joe's place haf karer. The set-up song was Haddaway's What is love? The kettle was powered up by 07:15. This provided boiling water by 08:00. 08:01 and Jemira, Leona were present without flowers. The slow open provided an opportunity to lay out the directions on a single board. The lab tables were once again referred to as lab benches to reduce confusion with report tabl...
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Periodic table day two

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Students were asked to sketch a schematic model of carbon protons, neutrons, and electrons.  Welcome to the generation that cannot focus on lecture presented material.  The lecture followed the usual path into acids and bases for this course.
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AI Assisted Feedback in Moodle

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April 15  Laboratory reports in two courses are marked with rubrics. This is an exploration of the capabilities of AI assisted feedback ( AIF ) in Moodle 4.5. The AIF plug-in was configured in practice mode in assignments for both courses.  The first example is from SC 250 Botany, a thin layer chromatography analysis of plant pigments. The laboratory report is marked using a rubric as seen below.    The prompt given is seen below along with setting up Generate feedback automatically on submission for Practice mode, which is the formative feedback mode for AIF.   For AIF to use the rubric, the Grading Method must be set to rubric. For Practice mode, the marking workflow must be set to No, which effectively turns off the practice mode. There is a summative Teacher-Reviewed mode that involves a different set of settings.         The following is an example from SC 130 Physical Science Ohm's law laboratory exercise. This laboratory is also...
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