OSMOSIS 12,SPRING 1997

Contents

Letter from the Director
The SAPS Internet Forum
Plants in the Playground
Phosphatase enzymes in plants
Postbag
The amazing Concertina Cactus

Letter from the Director

Dear Colleague,

Our new World Wide Web site was launched at the ASE Conference in Birmingham thanks to some hard work by Dr Mary MacDonald who joined SAPS in October. We are also grateful to Dr Keith Bennett of the Department of Plant Sciences here in Cambridge for help with setting up the server, and for his continuing assistance. The URL of the server is at the top of this page. If you still have bookmarks for other SAPS sites, please change them now. Visits to the site increase steadily with many from abroad, most frequently from the Czech Republic, France, Australia and the USA. More information about the web site is below.

At SAPS Edinburgh Rodger McAndrew returns to his post at Queensferry H.S. in August after eighteen months secondment with SAPS. We are grateful to him and to Kirsty Menzies for all that they have done for SAPS in Scotland. From August 1997 SAPS will be investing directly in the education programme of the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh where two of the staff, Susie Kelpie and Ginger Franklin, have been trained to run SAPS workshops. We also hope that Aileen Sherry and Nicky Souter will continue to run SAPS workshops for Scottish teachers in the Strathclyde area.

Meanwhile Mary MacDonald will be continuing with development work on plant DNA, tissue culture and plant pathology in Cambridge and, with Dr Barry Meatyard in Warwick, we continue to offer a full range of workshops.

Richard Price

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The SAPS Internet Forum

  • Most of the SAPS material, including all back issues of Osmosis, is now on the site.
  • The database allows you to search the whole site quickly for information.
  • The question and answer service is active.
  • New material is being commissioned and added to the site all the time.
  • Abstracts of plant science articles in Biological Sciences Review, School Science Review and the Journal of Biological Education are being added to the database.
  • We are listing good educational sites as we discover them. We hope that this will reduce the amount of time that teachers need to spend browsing the Internet to locate useful teaching material.

Feature articles coming to the site:

  • Activities with Lichens as pollution indicators
    The genetics of disease resistance
    Potato blight and the Irish famine
    Agricultural perspectives in developing countries
    Dry Drayton School and the Concertina cactus

We are always looking for good articles and ideas to share with teachers - if you feel you would like to contribute, please contact me by post or by e-mail: . All contributions to the site will be acknowledged.

Mary MacDonald

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Plants in the Playground

Linda Gray writes .... SAPS is often asked for advice about the development and planting of school grounds and garden areas. We are unable to deal with this directly, but you may be able to get advice from the following organisations.

Learning Through Landscapes
Third Floor, Southside Offices, The Law Courts, Winchester, SO23 9DL.
Tel: 01962 846258
Offer information and advice to schools; produce a range of publications and resource packs; run membership scheme for schools.

The Norfolk Wildlife Trust
72 Cathedral Close, Norwich, NR1 4DF.
Tel: 01603 625540
Offer information and advice to schools; produce a range of publications and resource packs; will visit schools in local area.

London Wildlife Trust
80 York Way, London, N1 9AG.
Tel: 0171 278 6612
Offer information and advice; provides school visits and Inset training.

HenryDoubledayResearchAssociation
RytonOrganicGardens, Ryton-on-Dunsmore, Coventry CV8 3LG.
Tel: 01203 303517
Offer information and advice to schools; produce a range of publications and resource packs; organise school visits.

IslingtonEcologyCentre
GillespiePark, London N5
Tel: 0171 354 5162
Offer information and advice to local schools.

Wildlife Watch (The Wildlife Trusts) The Green, WithamPark, Waterside, S. LincolnLN5 7JR
Tel: 01522 544400
Offer information and advice to schools; produce a range of publications and resource packs; organise school visits; run membership scheme for schools.

Royal Horticultural Society
Wisley, Woking, Surrey, GU23 6QB
Tel: 01483 224234
Offer information and advice to schools; produce a range of publications; organise school visits; run membership scheme for schools.

Hampshire Gardens Trust,
Jermyns House, Jermyns Lane, Ampfield Hants SO51 0QA
Tel: 01794 367752
Offer information and advice to Hampshire schools; produce a termly newsletter for schools; provide visits and financial assistance.

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Postbag

Many of these questions and answers are now being archived in the searchable database on our web site.

Q. I am having trouble keeping my plants upright using the Philip Harris growing system. The wicks are so thick that they make the quads topple over.

Try growing the plants in black film cans with a hole drilled in the bottom for the wick. Bind 4 or 5 film cans together with a rubber band so that they support each other. (see also Stabilising Film Cans in Osmosis No 11).

Q. Are you suffocating your fast plant seeds?

In our planting instructions, we state that the seeds should not be buried and that, when they are covered, the mix should not be pressed down hard. If you are having trouble with germination and/or weak growth of seedlings, it may be because you have packed the growing mix too hard. If you do this you will exclude the air which contains oxygen and the seeds will not germinate well. Even if they do germinate, root growth will be limited and this could explain why you get weak seedlings.

Q. I have been using the SAPS NCBE DNA kit and have extracted DNA with the different protocols. I can get a DNA band from the plant material but I don't seem to be getting anything from the lambda DNA alone, or when it has been digested with the restriction enzymes. Can you help me?

We have discussed this with the NCBE and the commonest reason for this problem is that the DNA must be fully rehydrated otherwise there will not be any substrate for the restriction enzymes to work on. To do this, flick the base of the tube carefully across your fingers until the DNA is fully rehydrated - it may take a few minutes. You can also draw the liquid up and down in the pipette tip to ensure that the two components are well mixed.

Q. Our bottle of TBE buffer has solidified, do we have to buy some more or can we rescue it?

We recommend that the TBE buffer is not stored in the refrigerator but is stored at room temperature. If it does precipitate you can try putting it in a 60 C water bath, which may overcome the problem. If you still have problems contact the NCBE.

Judy Vincent, ClareMiddle School, Suffolk writes: Dear SAPS,
You kindly gave my school a grant for a light-bank and fast brassica kit this summer and I wanted to thank you - it has been great! Of course we have had the brassica plants - and five weeks was just how long it took too - very successful. The same year group also tried radishes and were thrilled at the size (and speed) of them. We also germinated some sunflower seeds with year 5 and then measured overnight growth which was very exciting and caused much discussion. I seem to remember on my grant application form that I said I hoped that the pupils would find plants more exciting now and they do! They came straight in and made for the light-bank to locate their plants. Now that we have done it once we will be able to be more adventurous next time and I am hoping that we can use some of our own seed. I also plan to do some more wild oat science. I absolutely loved that.