Another successful Transition Year Programme in Plant Sciences
The TCD Transition Year programme in Plant Sciences continues to attract attention from transition year students, and this year we had over fifty applications to take part in the programme. From these, 17 lucky students from 10 different schools were selected. The programme, running from 20th-24th April, was a great success and we had beautiful spring weather for the whole week. Participants were able to enjoy diverse activities covering many aspects of Plant Science, both at TCD and at the TCD Botanic Gardens in Dartry.
The participants gave some very positive feedback for all of the activities, which included: extracting and imaging DNA from plant material; measuring plant responses to environmental signals; propagation of seeds and cuttings; the work of a herbarium; the fascination of insectivorous plants and investigating plant and pollinator interactions. As well as these activities, the students participated in several discussions and debates which helped them to gain a better insight into the importance of plant science. The week finished with a highly entertaining talk from Matthew Jebb, Director of the National Botanic gardens in Glasnevin.
We owe a debt of gratitude to all of the Trinity staff and students who gave of their valuable time to make the programme such a success, and we hope that many of the transition year students will return to us as full time undergraduates in the years to come.
Images posted to the TY blog during the programme can be found at http://tytcdplant.tumblr.com
Prof. Jane Stout teaching theTY participants all about plant/pollinator interactions at the TCD Botanic Gardens