Student-initiated Laboratory Projects

Students are often the best source of innovative ideas for learning opportunities, especially for laboratory courses. I have attempted to enhance an understanding of the global impact of fruits from around the world as part of HORT 354, Fruit Crops Laboratory, which I teach at the University of Nebraska. To do this, I have brought tropical and sub-tropical fruits into the classroom for observation, dissection and sampling both the fruit itself and where available, the processed product of such fruits. Several years ago, we were dissecting papaya fruits and one of the students said, "now what do we do with the seeds?" My response was, "what do you want to do with the seeds?" The student responded with a suggested simple germination experiment that focused on the seed's characteristics, which ultimately resulted in a large number of young papaya seedlings that were left over at the end of the semester. By continuing to grow these seedlings over the winter in the greenhouse, we had 20 large plants that were beginning to flower by the beginning of the following Fall Semester and the offering of HORT 354 again. This provided the opportunity to teach the students through self-discovery about the morphology and flowering characteristics of this tropical crop, including observation of both staminate and pistillate flowers. This also afforded the opportunity to pollinate the flowers and observe and measure the fruits as they develop. I have continued to make this an exercise for students in subsequent years, i.e., start seedlings for next year's class, while employing the plants produced by the previous year's class to gain insights into this crop that is not to be found in Nebraska. I have susequently employed this concept for students to learn about kiwifruit, pomegranates and several citrus species, all as the result of a student's intellectual curiosity.