Daniel, 4, discovers giant Amazon water lily pads can grow as wide as he can reach. Source: The Advertiser
TAKE a closer look at the giant Amazon water lily, beyond its spectacular flowers and to the fine structure of its leaves for a lesson in engineering.
A group of 40 teachers from 30 different schools recently heard the history of the lily at a workshop in the Adelaide Botanic Garden, organised by the South Australian Science Teachers Association.
The teachers toured the State Herbarium and the Museum of Economic Botany, but the highlight was a session on botanical drawing with local artist John Whitney.
Gardens education officer Cat Stone said she hoped the teachers would encourage their students to draw plants in class.
"Looking closely reveals details that you might not otherwise see," she said. "That’s so important in botanical illustration, and that’s an important thing for students to do when they are studying science."
Director Stephen Forbes said strong powers of observation enabled Sir Joseph Paxton to learn from nature. he cultivated the lily from seed collected in Guyana, South America, and marvelled at the architecture of the leaves.
Paxton famously used what he saw in the leaf to build a better kind of glasshouse. Then he designed London’s Crystal Palace.
"The leaf is the basis for modern cities," Mr Forbes said.
"Modern skyscrapers, which are basically glass and steel, are based on Paxton’s idea. It’s biomimicry: the idea was stolen from the giant Amazon water lily leaf."
Greenwith Primary School science co-ordinator Dominica Thomson said the workshop was inspirational. "It was really good to link science with art, because so often it’s kept in isolation," she said.
"We should be teaching across all the curriculum areas. Art is just such a beautiful outlet and it doesn’t have to be exact. John Whitney talked about letting go, so working on a scientific drawing of the water lily is one thing, but then also enjoying the beauty of it for the art is another."
Daniel, 4, from Colonel Light Gardens, enjoyed learning about the lily. "The flower is pretty and the leaves are very strong, they hold a lot of weight," he said.
<a href="http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/in-depth/learning-its-not-silly-to-paint-the-lily/story-e6frebvu-1226025930867tag:news.google.com,2005:cluster=http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/in-depth/learning-its-not-silly-to-paint-the-lily/story-e6frebvu-1226025930867Mon, 21 Mar 2011 23:59:05 GMT 00:00″>Learning it's not silly to paint the lily
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