Plant Blindness Reflection

In my biology class in high school, we rarely talked about plants and the importance of them in our environment. In the class, we only talked about them when learning about photosynthesis, in comparing plant cells to animal cells, and we talked a little bit on how plants affect our ecosystem. This was the only time during high school that I actually talked about plants, so the time I have spent in my life talking about plants is very little. However, I learned a ton of information about animals and their role in our life and the environment. Since I have not ever learned much about plants, I think I had Plant Blindness before starting this class. The extent of my knowledge about plants is what I have learned from walking in forests, photosynthesis takes place in plants, they are a huge source of food, and they have rigid cell walls.

I thought it was super interesting when the paper talked about how some of the causes for Plant Blindness was that we don’t necessarily look out or know much about plants because we don’t think they are going to hurt us.[1]I think this is a cause of plant blindness because I know that I personally am not concerned about plants putting me in danger if I’m going on a hike. However, if someone tells me about how they saw poison ivy or I spot some in the middle of the hike, I immediately become paranoid about getting poison ivy. I also thought it was interesting when the paper listed a possible cause of Plant Blindness could be that plants don’t come in many colors, are usually found in certain places, and we aren’t usually surprised by the time it takes them to grow.[2] I do think that plants being very similar is a reason for Plant Blindness. I have never thought about it before, but usually when I notice plants, I notice them because they are surprising in the way that they are growing or how they look. I usually don’t notice plants that seem similar to one another.

This paper is still relevant today, even though it was published in 1998. The reason that I took this class was to learn more about plants because I’ve never learned that much about them. Reading this paper convinced me that people need to learn about plants because they are such a big part of human life, yet we barely take time to think about them. Taking this class will allow me and other students to get to stop our Plant Blindness by learning about different plants, understanding the different types, and allowing us to develop and appreciation for plants.

[1] Schussler and Wandersee, “Preventing Plant Blindness,” 86.

[2] Schussler and Wandersee, “Preventing Plant Blindness,” 86.

Bibliography

Wandersee, James H., and Elisabeth E. Schussler, “Preventing Plant Blindness,”   The American Biology Teacher 61, no.2 (1998): 82-86. Accessed September 9, 2018.doi:10.2307/4450624.