Teaching

The Department of Botany uses the living collection of the Botany Garden and Greenhouse for many classes. Below is the current list of courses that use the collection or greenhouse space. For a full list of the courses available in the Botany Department, click here. We also provide educational experiences for several other departments on campus including Integrative Biology, Agronomy, Horticulture, Dance, and Art.

Instructors who wish to tour or use Botany Garden and Greenhouse space should fill out a tour request here.

UW- Botany instructors requesting plants for use in teaching should fill out a request here.

• Botany 100: Survey of Botany (for non-majors)
  • This survey of botany (plant biology) course, designed for non-science majors focuses on how plants affect the globe, the role of biodiversity in ecological sustainability, and the evolutionary processes that gave rise to today’s plant diversity. The student will gain a deep understanding of how plants influence their lives and the basic science subjects needed to comprehend scientific advances that develop during their lifetime. There are two in-person, but recorded lectures, one quiz a week, and a one-hour lab/discussion each week.
• Botany 130: General Botany
  • Introduction to the basic principles and concepts of the biology of plants. an integrative approach stressing evolutionary sequences and the relationship between structure and function at succeeding levels of organization: molecule, cell, organism, population, community.
• Botany 299: Directed Study in Botany
  • Elementary level directed study/independent research. The purpose of this course to introduce undergraduate students to research questions and, facilitate their learning in the field of botany by providing them with guidance and mentorship in a research environment.
• Botany 300: Plant Anatomy
  • Plant structure and development of seed plants, primarily of flowering plants. Emphasis is placed on structure in relation to function and on the plant body as a structural and functional entity.
• Botany 305: Plant Morphology and Evolution
  • A broad survey of the diversity of plants in the context of their evolutionary history. Similarities and differences in structure and reproduction among extant bryophytes, lycopods, ferns, gymnosperms, and flowering plants are emphasized along with the study of fossils representing extinct plant lineages.
• Botany 330: Algae
  • Topics include ecology, evolution, systematics, taxonomy, physiology, biochemistry, cell biology, and molecular biology of freshwater, terrestrial, and marine algae and associated heterotrophic protists.
• Botany 332: Fungi
  • This introductory mycology course surveys the major groups of fungi and other organisms traditionally studied by mycologists with an emphasis on understanding the whole fungus, including ecology and evolutionary relationships.
• Botany 400: Plant Systematics
  • Plant systematics; the integration of taxonomy (identification, nomenclature, classification emphasizing flowering plants), evolution (speciation, reproductive biology, adaptation, convergence, biogeography), and phylogenetics (phenetics, cladistics, morphology and molecules).
• Botany 401: Vascular Flora of Wisconsin
  • Vascular Flora of Wisconsin is a taxonomic survey and natural history of the ferns, lycopods, horsetails, conifers and flowering plants of Wisconsin, with emphasis on the flowering plants.
• Botany 402: Dendrology
  • Identification, ranges, uses, and some ecological characteristics of evergreen and deciduous woody plants, both native and cultivated.
• Botany 422 Plant Geography
  • Biogeography of plants. Relationship to climate and geology; paleobiogeography, vicariance and island biogeography; history and distribution of floras of North America and Wisconsin; lecture and demo lab; open to advanced students in the natural sciences.
• Botany 460 General Ecology
  • Ecology of individual organisms, populations, communities, ecosystems, landscapes, and the biosphere. The interaction of organisms with each other and their physical environment. These relationships are studied, often in quantitative terms, in both field and laboratory settings.
• Botany 474 Ethnobotany
  • Study of the interactions between human cultures and plants. Topics include: traditional resource management and agriculture; crop domestication, evolution, and conservation; archaeobotany; indigenous knowledge; folk taxonomy; plants in symbolism and religion; dietary patterns; phytochemistry; global movement of plants and peoples.