An Introduction to Arabidopsis thaliana
(A-RA-BI-DOP-SIS)

 

Arabidopsis is...

 

• Native to Africa, Asia and Europe

• A common weed that has become naturalized around the world

• Adapted to live in many different environments

• A member of the mustard family, related to many food plants including cabbage, radish and cauliflower

• Small and easy to grow

• The first plant genome to be completely sequenced

• Easily mutated

• An important model system for research and science education

• Provided to K-12 schools free of charge

 

With Arabidopsis you can...

See a complete life cycle in 6-8 weeks Observe plant anatomy and development Explore inheritance and Mendelian genetics See variation within members of a species Observe adaptation to environmental conditions Make connections to food crops Make connections to real-life laboratory science Design simple experiments using scientific practices

 

What can teachers and students do with Arabidopsis?

 

Arabidopsis provides the opportunity to complement classroom lectures with hands-on experimentation using a live organism. A number of science concepts can be demonstrated using Arabidopsis in the classroom. We invite you to try “Greening the Classroom”, a set of teaching modules developed by the ABRC. Greening the Classroom modules, which are aligned with the Next Generation Science Standards, include detailed protocols, supporting materials and Arabidopsis seeds (provided free of charge for K-12 teachers). We recommend stock number CS70000, wild type Columbia, for classrooms designing their own experiments.