Courses

Plants provide the oxygen we breathe, energy for the food we eat, and essential materials and fuels to power a world where we are their hosts. Understanding how plants work is key to meeting the growing world population demands for these products and services, and for determining the interactions between plants and a changing climate.

BPSC/BIOL 143 is an upper division course covering fundamental mechanisms of how plants function and interact with their environment. Lecture topics include plant water relations, nutrient transport and assimilation, photosynthesis, respiration, flowering control, seed germination and development, vegetative growth, and plant senescence. Students will acquire laboratory skills on how to perform and report plant physiological experiments including assessing plant water and photosynthetic status, and quantifying and determining types of plant abiotic stress.