Blogging About Botany

Plants are boring, right? Of course not! My name is Savanna Henning, and I am a junior studying biology and French at Central College. My view of plants has changed drastically in the last 6 months after doing summer research with Dr. Benedict at the field station and taking a field botany course this semester. This summer, as I worked on the Prairies for Agriculture project with Dr. B, I began to understand the complex roles of plants in ecosystems as habitat, camouflage, and food sources for various organisms. I found myself excited to share with others about my new knowledge, so when my botany professor Dr. Weihe announced we had to complete independent projects, I knew I wanted to do something with public education on botany. Inspired by other accounts on sustainability, I decided to make an Instagram account called a_bitofbotany (follow me!) that featured native plants and locally grown food.

I focused on making my account engaging with catchy theme days and puns and jokes. Among other theme days, I posted on #treeTuesday, #wildflowerWednesday, and #freshfoodFriday. The posts featured a plant that related to the theme. I focused my posts on native plants or plants capable of growing well in Iowa gardens so followers could relate my posts easily to their life. Many of my ideas started with a small amount of knowledge I already had from class or experience that was supplemented by outside research. Take for example a post I did for #wildflowerwednesday on Leadplant. I knew the plant was an indicator of remnant prairies but I learned more about the origins of it’s common name by using an additional source.

Following my post, I would pose questions to followers using various methods. I found people interacted best using polling on my Instagram story. I received a lot of feedback and suggestions from peers, family, and friends in conversation outside social media as well. I had suggestions for plants to feature, questions on if I was going to post that day, and conversations about other people’s experience with botany.

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