Science educators looking for ways to inspire interest in their students about plants may want to check out Botany Depot. Launched in early 2018, this resource describes itself as "a global website for creative ideas and materials for teaching botany in the 21st century for all ages and levels." Botany Depot is created and run by Lena Struwe, Professor of Plant Biology and Director of the Chrysler Herbarium at Rutgers University. Here, visitors will find a wide variety of botanical teaching ideas and resources, ranging from engaging videos to interactive lesson plans, all freely available. Examples include a teacher's guide for a botanical role-playing game centered on "toxic plants in the emergency room," which includes downloadable classroom worksheets and information on 55 different toxic plants. The teacher's guide also serves as an introductory manual of plant nomenclature created for beginning and intermediate botany learners, which covers wild, agricultural, and horticultural species and also includes PowerPoint slides of the figures in the manual for classroom use. Most of the resources shared by Botany Depot at this point were developed with college students in mind, but they could also be helpful for other educational levels or for naturalists and general plant enthusiasts.
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