{"id":85045,"date":"2013-10-23T08:34:42","date_gmt":"2013-10-23T12:34:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=85045"},"modified":"2015-12-14T10:23:05","modified_gmt":"2015-12-14T15:23:05","slug":"taking-adventure-botany-on-the-road","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2013\/10\/taking-adventure-botany-on-the-road\/","title":{"rendered":"Taking ‘Adventure Botany’ on the Road"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Christopher<\/a>
Christopher Martine \u201906 Ph.D., far right, the host and creator of the YouTube web series \u201cPlants Are Cool, Too!\u201d, gathers with the show\u2019s co-producers Tim Kramer, far left, and Paul Frederick, second from left, in the deserts of New Mexico to film the series\u2019 latest episode alongside fellow UConn alum Krissa Skogen \u201908 Ph.D, a conservation scientist at the Chicago Botanic Garden. (Photo by Patrick Alexander)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Whether you await the arrival of \u201cShark Week\u201d with feverish enthusiasm each year or simply look forward to greeting your Labradoodle when you return home at day\u2019s end, it\u2019s likely you subscribe to Christopher Martine \u201906 Ph.D.\u2019s belief that animals are, indeed, awesome.<\/p>\n

But this UConn alum is out to prove to you that, in fact, plants are very cool, too.<\/p>\n

Traveling to deserts, swamps, and mountain ranges across the country with a film crew in tow, Martine is on a mission to seek out unusual and extraordinary stories about the plant world and then to deliver them to audiences far and wide via his own YouTube web series \u2013 aptly titled \u201cPlants Are Cool, Too!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is all this dynamic visual content out there for young people to watch,\u201d says Martine, creator, co-producer, and host for \u201cPlants Are Cool, Too!\u201d as well as associate professor of plant genetics and research at Bucknell University. \u201cThere\u2019s \u2018Shark Week\u2019 and all these other animal shows, and it\u2019s a great way for kids to learn about nature. I thought, \u2018Well, what do people have for plants?\u2019 There are a lot of gardening shows; no kid is going to watch a gardening show. So the idea here was to generate cool content related to botany, and hope that young people had something they could actually find and watch if they were willing to learn about plants.\u201d<\/p>\n

Through his \u201cadventure botany\u201d series, which releases its fourth installment this week, Martine educates viewers on the plant kingdom by highlighting particularly interesting plants, along with the botanists who conduct innovative research that may be unfamiliar even to their fellow scholars in the field.<\/p>\n

Touting the cool factor of plants to students is likely no easy task. But it is a job Martine has eagerly taken on of his own accord.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a representative of the discipline of botany, I\u2019ve come to not just recognize, but also relish, the underdog role,\u201d he says. \u201cIf I can explain to the students why I love something, they can\u2019t help but at least be curious and willing to listen to me. And then maybe \u2013 once that door\u2019s open \u2013 they actually find some other stuff that piques their interest, and want to learn even more.\u201d<\/p>\n

Adventures in botany<\/b><\/p>\n

Each webisode of \u201cPlants Are Cool, Too!\u201d follows Martine as he treks to such destinations as the Adirondack Mountains \u2013 where he and his guest botanist find amidst the snow-covered hills a type of blooming plant with blazing internal temperatures \u2013 or the backcountry of Idaho, where he joins a group of scientists excavating fossilized leaves so well preserved that they miraculously still hold their 15-million-year-old autumn hues.<\/p>\n

Encapsulating informative botany lessons in the form of entertaining webisodes that typically run 15 minutes or less is a challenge for which Martine seems especially well suited. A former singer, songwriter, and aspiring actor, he has found a way to bring his talents in the performing arts not only to his role as the engaging, amiable host of \u201cPlants Are Cool, Too!\u201d, but also to his work as a university professor.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery time class starts, for me, it is kind of a performance,\u201d says Martine, who, along with his colleagues, uses \u201cPlants Are Cool, Too!\u201d in his lectures as a way to introduce students to topics in botany. \u201cI think that my experience performing has helped to make me a better teacher. In the case of this video series, having to present complex material in a way that a whole roomful of students will understand has also really helped me to become adept at doing that on camera.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the same time, Martine says that sharing \u201cPlants Are Cool, Too!\u201d in his classes at Bucknell offers his students an up-close look at research they otherwise would not have the opportunity to see firsthand. \u201cIt\u2019s much different for them to essentially go on the trip, go on the adventure with the scientist, even for 15 minutes, than for me to stand in front of the room and tell them about it through pictures and on a chalkboard,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u2018Science needs a Chris Martine\u2019<\/b><\/p>\n

\"Christopher<\/a>
Christopher Martine \u201906 Ph.D., left, and Krissa Skogen \u201908 Ph.D. collect a sample of pollen from the proboscis of a nocturnal hawkmoth at White Sands National Monument in New Mexico, while filming the latest episode of Martine\u2019s web series, \u201cPlants Are Cool, Too!\u201d Both are alumni of UConn\u2019s ecology and evolutionary biology graduate program. (Photo by Patrick Alexander)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In the latest webisode of \u201cPlants Are Cool, Too!\u201d<\/a>, Martine teams up with a fellow alum of UConn\u2019s ecology and evolutionary biology graduate program \u2013 conservation scientist Krissa Skogen \u201908 Ph.D. \u2013 in the deserts of New Mexico to study sundrops, a type of night-blooming wildflower. There, Skogen and Martine catch the sundrops\u2019 chief pollinators, called hawkmoths, and collect samples of the flower\u2019s scent, as well as the nectar and pollen these moths have gathered on their nocturnal journey from blossom to blossom.<\/p>\n

With these samples, Skogen explains, she and her research team can begin to gather answers to an array of questions \u2013 from what compounds make up the scent of this particular species of plant to what role these pollinators play in the flowers\u2019 survival.<\/p>\n

The significance of such research, Skogen says, relates closely to one of the biggest stories in the news today \u2013 the collapse of honeybees. \u201cWe know next to nothing about most native bees, and for that matter, pollinators, worldwide,\u201d she says. \u201cProjects like this help create a baseline knowledge about pollinators \u2013 bees, hawkmoths, bats \u2013 and help move the field forward and contribute to a greater understanding about plants, and the insects that rely on them. Only through studies like this can we understand how that works and be able to make predictions about the consequences of loss of plants or loss of pollinators.\u201d<\/p>\n

In hopes of continuing to highlight studies like this, Martine is looking to land funding for up to a dozen more episodes, which currently receive partial support from Bucknell and the Botanical Society of America.<\/p>\n

His colleagues \u2013 Skogen among them \u2013 are all for it. \u201cFrankly, all of science needs a Chris Martine, who has the passion, talent, and excitement for getting people engaged,\u201d Skogen says. \u201cBotany is really lucky to have him.\u201d<\/p>\n

See more of the \u201cPlants Are Cool, Too!\u201d series at <\/i>youtube.com\/PlantsAreCoolToo<\/i><\/a>. Or follow Christopher Martine on Twitter @MartineBotany.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

YouTube series host Chris Martine \u201906 Ph.D. \u2013 singer, songwriter, and botany professor \u2013 has ‘cool’ down to a science.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":84842,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[147,2226,1],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[49],"class_list":["post-85045","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alumni","category-clas","category-uncategorized"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-11 05:37:30","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85045","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=85045"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85045\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":107103,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85045\/revisions\/107103"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/84842"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=85045"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=85045"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=85045"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=85045"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=85045"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}