Plant Studies Videos

Having recently discovered that I actually quite like plants, I resolved to use some energy in finding out more about them.

This involved getting out in the great outdoors and photographing them, having a jolly good go at identifying the plants and if I couldn't then receiving the generous help from the friends at the Wildaboutbritian.co.uk forums.

It also involved something quite unexpected, but something brilliant. I stumbled across the University of California, Berkeley YouTube page and found that they upload lots of their course lectures for everyone to view. The videos are uploaded as they are filmed, meaning that if a course starts in January, then you can start watching it in January!

Needless to say, I have found this an invaluable resource and it has allowed me to advance my knowledge of the functions of plants in a relatively short space of time, as I have been able to watch the plant studies part of Biology 1B from Spring 2011, Autumn 2011, and I'm now part way through the Spring 2012 presentation.

I feel that these videos are that good, that I've not only made them into seperate playlists in YouTube to save time searching for the videos (UCBerkeley has uploaded over 3000 videos). But I've also provided links to my playlist of the videos in order of presentation and I've embedded them here for quick access.

The Spring presentations are given by Lewis Feldman. He has a real passion for plants and it's obvious to see in his presentation style and the examples he brings to the lectures. The Autumn lectures are by Bruce Baldwin, who presents totally by powerpoint and can get a bit monotonous, but still good at passing on his knowledge.

I hope that if you're interested in knowing a bit more about plants, that you'll take a look at these videos. They cover topics such as:

• Fungi, Algae, Mosses and Lower Vascular Plants
• Roots, Structure and Development
• Shoots
• Plant Growth Substances
• Flowering
• plus other topics

The fantastic thing is that the subject matter isn't as difficult as it sounds. It's really interesting watching - hence my third time around! If you find them useful, I'd like to hear from you. Of course, my thanks goes out to UCBerkeley for providing these videos for us all, the copyright remains with them, although the enjoyment is held by us.

Spring 2011 Series



Autumn 2011 Series



Spring 2012 Series