Course Review: What a Plant Knows

As I've mentioned before, I'm a big fan of the book of the same name and have written quite a bit about it. Last year, I completed the course that's been made available by the folks at Coursera and delivered by none other than the author, Daniel Chamovitz.

The course is delivered over 7 weeks via videos, selected readings, and forum discussions. The website states that it take around 3-4 hours a week, but it took me no more than 2 hours a week.

It covers much of the same content as the book, such as how plants know up from down, whether they can hear music, and what sort of memory they have. Each week is completed with a short test of multiple answer questions that you can complete up to 100 times (if I remember correctly).

During one of the weeks, we also get a tour around Professor Chamovitz's laboratory.

I enjoyed reading the research papers presented as reading material throughout the course and learning some new things about the biology of plants. Importantly not all reading assignments are mandatory and a few are optional.

In this call you'll learn about plant biology, the scientific method and biological research, and how to question life in general and what senses we share with plants - and those that define us as humans.

I'd recommend this course, not just because it's free, but because it's interesting and while teaching us, allows us to question the definitions of senses and how far we've actually come in understanding plants and how they live.

The final test is much longer, can only be completed once, and is time restricted. So it's important that you feel confident that you can recall the course materials and the logic of plants before you begin it. However, saying that, I achieved 94.2% - showing that it's not that difficult.

If you'd like to find out more, please visit the course homepage. If you've already completed the course, I'd enjoy reading your comments about your experience.