In 80,000 square feet of space across four greenhouse facilities on the campus of the University of Missouri, undergraduate students are involved in hands-on learning, while graduate students and research students are conducting a wide variety of studies and experiments.
“The greenhouses are utilized by multiple departments on campus in addition to Plant Sciences,” says Michelle Brooks, plant growth facility coordinator for the College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources (CAFNR) greenhouses at MU. “Approximately 90 percent of the space is used for research purposes, and 10 percent is used for teaching purposes.”
All of the greenhouses are located on the main campus, with the East Campus Growth Facility and the Ashland Road Research Greenhouses on the southeast corner of campus, the Ernie and Lotti Sears Plant Growth Facility in the middle of campus; and the Bond Life Sciences Greenhouse on the roof of the Bond Life Sciences Center.
Supporting Hands-on Learning
While several plant science classes include a lab that would bring undergraduate students into one of MU’s greenhouses, there are many other classes that also use the greenhouses. Brooks says that there are about 200 students each semester who use the greenhouse space for a class, in addition to about 50 principal investigators, plus the technicians, graduate students, and post-doctorate students who assist them.
Brooks offers a Worker Protection Standards training each year for anyone who has access to greenhouse space, training about 500 people every year, she says, “so there are a lot of people on campus who use greenhouse space.”
Read more at comomag.com