The Unit Study Homeschooler
Jessica Hulcy
Summertime Botany Unit
On the first day of class, my Botany professor at the Uni- versity of Texas held up a to- mato and informed the class,
“Every time you eat a tomato, remember
you;are;eating;a;ripe;ovary.”;Ugh!;That
was information I could have done without! But admittedly, I was intrigued by
this off-the-wall professor.
His teaching style was equally un-
conventional as we chased him through
meadows and along roadsides, keeping
up with him as we gathered wildflow-
ers that he pointed out and scratched
his every word in our notebooks while
walking. In Texas, the state flower is
the bluebonnet or more specifically Lu-
pinus texensis . . . and, of course, there
is a state law against picking them.
Naturally, our professor had been pick-
ing bluebonnets one day when a state
trooper attempted to ticket him . . . until
the professor challenged the officer as
to whether the picked flower was Lu-
pinus texensis, the true state flower, or
Lupinus havardii, a look-alike. The of-
ficer finally tore up the ticket. I loved
this professor’s teaching and learned as
much from him about how to teach as I
learned about botany.
The rose family does not
simply include the thorny
beauties, but it includes
all those edible fruits such
as strawberries, apples,
pears, peaches, and
cherries.
Collect, Compare, and Categorize
First, you collect plant specimens and
press them in a phone book or plant
press, and then you begin to study and
compare them, noticing all their simi-
larities and distinctives. Comparing
finally creates categories, which turn
out to be plant families. My college
professor;taught;us;this;rule:;“Do;not
obsess over grouping plants by genus
and species but rather examine and
group plants by like characteristics to
find;the;plant;families.”;I;followed;his
lead years later when I wrote a unit
study on plants1 but with a twist—the
incredible similarities were all a part of
God’s incredible design!
