The molecules behind plant growth

Suitable for 14-19-year olds (secondary and high schools, and college), this article and accompanying activity sheet can be used in the classroom, STEM/science clubs and at home.

This resource links to KS4 and KS5 Biology and Chemistry and is also internationally relevant.

It can also be used as a careers resource and links to Gatsby Benchmarks:
Gatsby Benchmark 2: Learning from career and labour market information
Gatsby Benchmark 4: Linking curriculum learning to careers

• Plants do not have a nervous system, a brain, or any of the sensory organs that we are familiar with in animals – so how do they know how to respond? This teaching resource explains the work of Dr Alexander Jones from the University of Cambridge in the UK. Alexander is a plant scientist investigating how the plant hormone gibberellin affects plant growth and what this means for the crops of our future.

• This resource also contains an interview with Alexander and his team members Dr Annalisa Rizza and Bijun Tang about their role on the research project and career path. If your students (or you) have questions for Alexander, Annalisa or Bijun, you/they can send them to them online. All you need to do is to go to the article online (see the Futurum link below), scroll down to the end and type in the question(s). Alexander, Annalisa or Bijun will reply!

• The activity sheet provides ‘talking points’ (based on Bloom’s Taxonomy) to prompt students to reflect on Alexander’s research and challenges them to think about how plants react to their surrounding environment and grow.

• The PPT reiterates the key points in the article and includes separate Bloom’s Taxonomy talking points.

This resource was first published on Futurum Careers, a free online resource and magazine aimed at encouraging 14-19-year-olds worldwide to pursue careers in science, tech, engineering, maths, medicine (STEM) and social sciences, humanities and the arts for people and the economy (SHAPE).

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