With all the emphasis on science in today’s schools, who would have thought that an actual knowledge of nature would be a casualty? In a recent article for Memoria Press, I discussed what some are now calling a national crisis. According to The Wall Street Journal:

… The issue has prompted botanical gardens around the nation to raise the alarm. Colleges are beefing up plant identification coursework for a generation of botanists more focused on their microscopes than studying leaf patterns. Bills introduced in the U.S. Senate in July and the U.S. House last year are aimed at promoting botany education.

I confirmed this fact with a young friend of our family who is studying botany in college. She related a conversation she had with one of her professors who had the same worry: Too few students are focusing on the actual study of plants, and instead are studying the commercialized applications of the discipline. Nobody, said her professor, seems interested in the plants anymore.

Read the rest here.

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