Next, hormones — those secret messages that make a seed decide between sleep and sprint. I give them two Petri dishes: one control, one dosed with gibberellin. Seeds in the treated dish spring faster, cotyledons pushing like tiny flags. We test auxin by placing agar blocks on decapitated coleoptiles; the bend toward the block reads like a declaration of influence. Students whisper about “chemical handwriting” as we map how gradients, not absolutes, shape a plant’s choices. A quick role-play — one student as auxin, another as cell wall-loosener — makes signal transduction less arcane and more theatrical.
I wake before dawn, boots barely laced, an old copy of Plant Physiology and Development tucked under my arm like a talisman. The field is soft and cool, droplets bead on young leaves catching the first hints of light. Today’s task: translate dense textbook theory into things my students can touch, taste, and measure by sunset.
Finally, we stitch it back to the big picture: how physiology underpins development, and how both shape the plants that feed, clothe, and shelter us. For assessment, each student proposes a short, doable experiment inspired by the book: altering light quality to influence flowering time, testing a compost tea’s effect on root growth, or comparing water-conservation traits between cultivars. They must outline methods, expected mechanisms (from the text), and simple, measurable outcomes.
