The Duckweed Project

The Duckweed Project provides students with an inquiry-based experience to science.  Students are introduced to duckweed communities through a pre-planned class experiment.  This is followed by individualized experiments planned and carried out by students in small groups.  Finally, written reports are shared with students at other schools through the Duckweed Paper Exchange.

The Duckweed Paper Exchange is a website that mimics a science journal, but is targeted to student papers on duckweed experiments. It guides reading of prior student projects, facilitates collaborative writing, and hosts student reports for future viewing. Contributions include the full range from elementary students to college students.  Contact Chad Brassil to setup the Duckweed Paper Exchange for use with your class.

K-12 Classrooms

Lesson plans are being developed through a collaboration with elementary classrooms of the Lincoln Public Schools (LPS). Coordinator Daniela Proano, a graduate student in science education, is designing inquiry-based lesson plans that utilize duckweed to satisfy LPS science objectives.

These classroom tested lesson plans will be made available for general use.

Undergraduate Courses

An undergraduate lab has been developed for use in a second-year ecology course at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.  The pre-structured portion over the first week examines density dependent, or logistic growth.  Students then design their own experiments instigation a question related to population growth.  A number of these student-led investigations already exist in the Duckweed Paper Exchange.

This lab can be adapted for use at other colleges & universities.