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DEPARTMENT OF BOTANY
The Plant Press
From The Plant Press, Vol. 23, No. 3, July 2020.
Children are learning how to press plants at home
During the current COVID-19 pandemic, teachers and parents have been looking for creative ways for their children to connect with nature and learn about science. Museum Specialist Erika Gardner and members of the Office of Education & Outreach at the National Museum of Natural History (NMNH) have recently produced a set of videos, articles, and webinars to teach, inspire, and guide children and adults on the joy and creative process of pressing plants. These activities allow individuals to connect with, learn about, and document the plants growing in their own yards.
The team made a video on how to build your own plant press, which was uploaded to NMNH’s Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube accounts. Smithsonian Voices also published an article, “How to Press Plants from Your Backyard,” which was uploaded to the Smithsonian Magazine webpage. The step-by-step instructions include a list of materials and the processes of assembling a press, drying the plants, and removing the pressed plants. The activity is designed for both younger and older children, and adults can get in on the fun as well.
Once the plants are dried and pressed, creative activities come into play. In a June 13 video webinar for families, Gardner showed families how to use pressed plants for art projects like greeting cards and bookmarks, and she shared best practices for keeping one’s own pressed plant collections.
A kindergarten teacher from the Langley School in McLean, Virginia, recently made use of the videos to engage her students in a natural history activity as a distance-learning lesson. The teacher was looking for an activity to allow her students to “feel official and important” while asking her students to help document their backyard natural history. The teacher sent Gardner a few photos of her students' work by way of expressing their thanks for making the lesson “so memorable and special” for them (see images below). The teacher writes, “we had so much fun and created beautiful art from the plants we found in our yards. We didn’t know it could be so easy!” These science skill-building activities are ways to help children explore the natural world.
