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A
wide range of educational
opportunities
is found at Montgomery
Botanical Center. Our scientific plant collections have educational
value. We host
students, teachers, classes, members of plant societies and
botanical groups, as well as all others interested in scientific plant
collections. Biology and botany
classes come to study our cultivated collections as well as the five
types of native plant communities here. Each year, university geology
students research the Silver Bluff Limestone Escarpment that extends
the length of our property. Tropical botany classes through the
University of Florida and Harvard University use MBC’s collections as a
living laboratory each summer. As a 24-hour-a-day functioning outdoor
scientific laboratory, MBC is open by
appointment
to scientists, educators, students, historians,
botanical groups, and all others interested in scientific plant
collections.
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In
March 2008, Montgomery Botanical Center (MBC) hosted an Environmental
Immersion Day for students from John A. Ferguson Senior High School as
part of The Fairchild Challenge environmental education program.
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Michael Calonje, MBC cycad biologist, discusses pollination biology
with students during Fairchild Challenge Environmental Immersion Day.
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Ericka Witcher, MBC collections specialist, explains Terra Ceia muck --
soil rich in anaerobic bacteria and found in the low, tidal areas of
MBC. |
Students assemble Air-Pots with Vickie Murphy, MBC nursery curator.
These pots provide excellent drainage, allowing MBC's nursery
collections to develop better root systems. |
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Dr.
Larry Noblick, MBC palm biologist, and Judy Kay, MBC Seedbank coordinator, with the students
participating in the Environmental Immersion Day. |
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MBC palm biologist, Dr.
Larry Noblick, frequently
interprets MBC's palm collections for interested groups. Here, Dr.
Noblick speaks to a group from Adelaide Botanic Gardens in Australia
on the
history of Col. Montgomery's original Coconut Grove Palmetum
collections.
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Former MBC executive director, Terrence Walters, gives a
lecture and tour of
MBC to the University of Florida’s Public Management Class, taught by
horticulture professor, Dr. Bijan Dehgan.
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Dr. Brad Bennett of Florida International
University brought his Local Flora undergraduate class to MBC in 1998.
They spent the afternoon studying the native vegetation surrounding
historic Old Cutler Road.
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Former
director Dr. Terrence Walters gave botanically-oriented
lectures and tours to students of local community colleges and
universities. Here, Dr. Walters discusses cycad biology and
conservation with students from Miami Dade College. Dr. Walters is
holding a male cone of the African cycad, Stangeria eriopus.
Don Maser, the class instructor, looks on from the right.
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You won’t see this at most botanical
gardens--cutting down a mature plant for classroom study. In 1999,
Harvard’s Dr. Barry Tomlinson (left with chainsaw) and his students
took down this coconut palm at MBC to study its structure in detail.
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Dr. David Lee, Florida International University, uses MBC as
a living laboratory to instruct undergraduate botany studies about
basic plant taxonomy and morphology in 1998.
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In support of the increasing
documentation associated with collections at botanical gardens
worldwide, MBC’s former database supervisor, Sue Katz (left), instructs
a scientist from Hungary on the procedures MBC uses to document and map
its collections.
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Dr. Grenville Draper of Florida International
University utilizes the MBC property for graduate and undergraduate
geology education. The Silver Bluff Escarpment and this karstic
solution hole are valuable resources for teaching the geology of south
Florida.
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