Teachers at all levels need the help of professional botanists as they design hands-on plant activities at all grade levels. Biologists often are in touch with high school biology teachers and perhaps even middle school teachers but there has been less involvement with science education in grades K-8. These, however, seem to be the really critical years for the future of science education. We need to be sure that the natural curiosity of children, their eagerness to discover, is nourished in these early years. The Botanical Society's "Botany for the Next Millennium" challenges each of us to "sponsor retraining workshops for K-12 teachers." We need to show teachers how hands-on activities reinforce learning in our own courses. While it is important to provide teachers with effective hands-on activities, it is even more important to show them how to design such activities and how to evaluate activities they may find in textbooks, children's science books, and science "kits" which have quickly become a panacea for science instruction in the elementary schools. In addition to incorporating sound scientific concepts and appropriate procedures (hypothesis formation, experimental design, data analysis, etc.) the science activities must also include the effective use of technology. This presentation will include examples of hands-on activities from plant biology workshops we offer to teachers. A model for activity development helps teachers in the effective integration of curriculum from other areas (math, art, language arts, social studies, etc.) and also to integrate developmentally appropriate technology (videodisc, microscopes, video cameras, digital cameras, plant presses, and computers). Teachers learn how the use of data bases, spreadsheets, graphics programs, multimedia programs, graphing programs, and word processing can help students record and analyze data then communicate the results to others.

Key words: hands-on botany experiments, K-8 classroom activities