In this program, students already skilled in using a technical key for identifying unknown plants will participate in a group floristics project. Floristics is the study of the flora of a particular place. As a research team, we will collaborate on various tasks towards completing a second edition of a field guide to the plants of the South Sound camas prairies. Students will collect and prepare herbarium specimens. They will also build skills in herbarium curation including data entry that enables access to specimens online through the Consortium of Pacific Northwest Herbaria. Students will learn to use herbaria data to compare species diversity in different camas prairies in the Salish Sea region using similarity coefficients. And they will have the opportunity to create botanical illustrations to be included in the second edition. Good time-management skills will be critical as some of the work will be completed independently. Small group work is also a requirement. As a result, students must demonstrate a capacity to work collaboratively with others.
Assigned readings will be focused on camas prairies, floristics and biodiversity studies. Several required field trips will give students an opportunity to hone their knowledge about camas prairies and other Pacific Northwest plant communities in the field. Students will be expected to maintain a detailed field journal to support this work. In addition, readings combined with field trips will provide an opportunity to link climate, geology, fire ecology, and cultural history to floristic and vegetation patterns. Finally, some class time will be spent considering how botany can be practiced in ways that supports Indigenous communities working to revitalize traditional camas prairie foodways, in collaborative, respectful, and historically grounded ways.
Anticipated Credit Equivalencies:
4 - Floristic Research
4 - Camas Prairie Floristics and Ecology
Registration
Students are encouraged to email faculty to confirm that they have met the prerequisites. Qualified MES students can take this offering for 4-8 elective credits.Students must have successfully completed one or more of the following Evergreen programs: Field Plant Taxonomy and Biodiversity Conservation and/or Restoring Landscapes: Picturing Plants. Transfer students who took similar coursework elsewhere are encouraged to apply.
To request a signature, students should email faculty stating how they have met the upper division plant taxonomy prerequisite. They must also email samples of their expository writing and botanical illustration work to bowcuttf@evergreen.edu. In their letter of interest, they must speak to their capacity to work collaboratively with others. Decisions about signatures will be made after Academic Fair and before summer registration starts.
Academic Details
conservation, ecological restoration, floristic research methods, forestry, natural resource management, plant ecology, plant taxonomy and vegetation ecology.
$125 fee covers 3-day overnight trip to Mt. Rainier ($75) and lab access ($50)
Students should expect to spend $75 on art supplies, $100 on books, and $25 on a dissecting kit. Students who have taken Restoring Landscapes: Picturing Plants will already have most of these items.
Upper division credit will be awarded if earned by demonstrating intermediate to advanced skills in plant identification using technical keys and comprehension of course material based on independent and group assignments.
Internship opportunities for additional credit may be available with Center for Natural Lands Management, Ecostudies Institute, Mount Rainier National Park, Violet Prairie Seed Farm, and other non-profits involved in vascular plant biodiversity conservation in our region.