Post-compulsory programme - Economic botany activity tour

In this session, post-compulsory students can learn more about the important relationships between plants and people. The duration of this session is 45 minutes.

Bananas are one of the many rainforest plants which are discussed in the economic botany activity tour and workshop.

Overview

Students learn about the importance of plants for modern life, and the need for conservation whilst touring the iconic Palm House. Emphasis is placed on plants used in medicines, foods, textiles, building materials and other consumer products.

Length: Activity tour - 45 minutes
Group size: 15 students
Minimum supervision required: 1 adult per 10 students
Programme cost: Activity tour - £25 per group of 15 students
Administration fee: £80

Learning outcomes

School visits at Kew Gardens support and enhance the curriculum offered in schools. We aim to give students opportunities that are difficult or impossible to create in the school environment.

As teachers ourselves, we design our sessions to match the learning outcomes in the National Curriculum. At the moment, the new government has withdrawn the changes planned for 2010/11 and will be producing new curriculum guidelines. Once they have done that, we will re-visit the learning outcomes for our sessions.

The learning outcomes shown apply to the curriculum as it is at this time. This session offers students the opportunity to learn to:

identify the many uses of plants (medicinal, foods, cosmetics, textiles, etc.)
compare and contrast different conservation techniques, discussing the advantages and disadvantages of each
explain in situ and ex situ conservation
recognise that many products they encounter every day as consumers originate in the world's rainforests
understand the importance of plant conservation and the threat to plant biodiversity.