Wild Flower Society Receives $2.49 million National Science Foundation Grant
Press Release by Steven Ziglar (edited)
October 19, 2009

What if you could walk into the woods, see an interesting plant, pull out your cell phone, connect to the Internet, identify the species, and access a wealth of information about it?

The National Science Foundation (NSF) found the concept very interesting and has just awarded a four-year grant totaling $2.49 million to the New England Wild Flower Society for "Go-Botany: Integrated Tools to Advance Botanical Learning."

"Go-Botany" is a multi-faceted project, including the creation of an online state of the art plant identification key for all New England flora. It will build upon the upcoming New England Wild Flower Society publication, "New England Flora," the first comprehensive botanical reference of the region's plant taxa to be published in the last 25 years.

The targeted audiences span a continuum from beginners without previous knowledge to students with considerable previous exposure to local plants. The educational products associated with "Go-Botany" will be distributed nationally to educational organizations and will serve as a model for training in botany.

One direct impact of "Go-Botany" will be to increase the level of public interest in botany and plant identification among youth and adults in our region.

A second impact will be increased abilities of informal science educators in New England and beyond to use plants in teaching activities.

The website will employ three separate types of keys, so that users will be able to access information compiled from multiple sources to identify a plant to the taxon level (usually species level) using the key best suited to their ability.

Once the user works through a key, he/she will arrive at a “Taxon Page,” which will contain color photographs, maps, links to other sources, and a wide range of additional information about the plant.

The senior staff team, researching the taxa and building the computer models, is comprised of William Brumback (Conservation Director at New England Wild Flower Society), Dr. Elizabeth Farnsworth (Author, Ecologist, and Educator, MA), Arthur Haines (New England Wild Flower Society Research Botanist), and Sidharth Koul (New England Wild Flower Society Programmer Analyst).

Key partners for research, development, and testing include the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History, New Haven, CT; the Montshire Museum of Science, Norwich, VT; and the Chewonki Foundation, Wiscasset, ME.

“We are extremely pleased with this $2.49 million grant from the National Science Foundation,” stated Debbi Edelstein, New England Wild Flower Society Executive Director.

"With the online 'Go-Botany,' New England Wild Flower Society moves the exciting world of botany into the 21st century and makes botanical knowledge accessible, which is key to the survival of plants in this age of global warming. At a time when fewer people are relating to the natural world, this tool will enable New Englanders to better understand and appreciate the green world around them. When you begin to learn the plants you see every day, your interest in conservation naturally follows,” stated William Brumback, 'Go-Botany' Project Director and New England Wild Flower Society Conservation Director.

The New England Wild Flower Society is located at Garden in the Woods, 180 Hemenway Rd., Framingham, Mass 01701. For more information, call 508-877-7630 or visit www.newfs.org.

XXXXX