Plant Blindness
Mar 13th, 2007 by Axel
Plants fuel life on Earth by tapping the sun’s energy. But if plants are the main mediators between the physical and biological worlds, why do most people tend to appreciate animals so much more than plants?
That question is at the center of a new campaign whose rallying cry is “Prevent Plant Blindness.” The aim of the campaign is to liberate students from the many traps that lead to a lack of appreciation for and understanding of plants, say its leaders, botanist-educators James Wandersee of Louisiana State University, in Baton Rouge, and Elizabeth Schussler of the Ruth Patrick Science Education Center, in Aiken, South Carolina. Wandersee runs LSU’s 15° Laboratory (www. 15degreelab.com), which takes its name from the observation that people prefer to view objects that are between 0 and 15 degrees below eye level.