This video is provided by Wisconsin Fast Plants, and introduces three recommended planting systems to use for planting Fast Plants seeds. The video gives an overview of the different methods: the Deli Container, the Wisconsin Fast Plants Watering System, and the Bottle Growing System. This recording runs for 02:13 minutes in length. Additional videos about planting with Fast Plants, and using these different growing systems, are available to view separately.

This Immersion Unit provides a coherent series of lessons designed to guide students in developing deep conceptual understanding that is aligned with the National standards, key science concepts, and essential features of classroom inquiry (as defined by the National Science Education Standards). The goal of this unit is to provide students with an opportunity to explore the interdependency of living and nonliving factors in an ecological system. Students investigate the process of decomposition and examine the role that decomposers and other organisms play in the transfer of energy and matter. The Unit's overarching concepts are: Organisms need matter and energy to live. Science knowledge advances through inquiry. This unit was developed through the large Math and Science Partnership project called System-wide Change for All Learners and Educators (SCALE), involving a collaboration among Los Angeles School District educators, California State University science and education faculty, and UW-Madison SCALE staff.

Download and print this colorful "Science Inquiry Map" Poster featuring the web of inquiry processes as described by the Five Essential Features of Inquiry from the National Science Education Standards. In addition, the model of inquiry described by the Five Essential Features aligns directly with the Science Practices described in the Next Generation Science Standards. Generally, this poster is used by elementary and middle-school teachers to support learners in being metacognitive about what science practices are in the foreground of their current work during an investigation.

This document is the step-by-step instructions for planting Fast Plants in a deli-container growing system like is used in Reading Green. The instructions include measurements that are then integrated into mathematics problems that are on the flip side of the planting instructions. The instructions are illustrated by our Fast Plants artist, Amy, to help all learners understand the steps.

A 23-page PDF file (644 KB) with a complete set of activities for elementary students (also effective in middle school) to learn about the life cycle of flowering plants with a focus on reproduction. Students predict how many seeds their Fast Plant will produce and engage in planting, growing, observing doing supporting learning activities to understand the life cycle. Carolina Biological sells a kit to accompany this activity for a class of 32 students, containing the seeds and planting materials. Alternatively, the activity can be taught using the "how to grow" instructions on the Fast Plants website, seeds from a packet of Standard Wisconsin Fast Plants (or seeds from Fast Plants you grow yourself) and your own potting mix and growing system. A 24-hour light source is needed for this activity.

This document includes a timeline and calendar to serve as planning tools for teachers to use when figuring out when to begin the steps associated with conducting a two-generation artificial selection experiment using Fast Plants. This investigation focuses on selection for the stem color trait. Teachers preparing for a selection experiment will find the calendar particularly helpful, and the timeline can be used as a printable student guide as well. This investigation was created alongside the Investigating Brassicas Around the World lesson (searchable in Digital Library) but can also be conducted as a standalone lab experiment.

Who knew that rocket science could have so much in common with botany and plant pathology? This is a human interest and science story that documents from firsthand accounts and artifacts the historical context and scientific events relevant to an important collaborative Fast Plant investigation on the MIR Space Station. The project coincided with pivotal historical events and involved many scientists, teachers, and students in the Ukraine and the US. The project was called the Collaborate Ukraine Experiment, and this story was written explicitly to present in an interesting way to students and teachers how engineering practices--as well as science practices--are important in the life sciences.

This is a page on the Fast Plants website, describing the Standard variety of Wisconsin Fast Plants (Brassica rapa). This page includes suggestions for investigations and teaching applications using this seed variety, including use as a model organism to teach about the plant life cycle and plant structures and functions.

This is "The Story of Fast Plants" - a short story of the origins of Brassicas and the work of Dr. Paul Williams, developing Brassica rapa. Reading level ~7th grade.

This activity is designed for teaching the functions of basic plant structures. The activity uses two types of matching cards containing either a) Structures - depictions of plant structures b) Functions - descriptions of the function of plant structures  Using the downloadable PDF (including instructions for printing) you can make one set of cards per student or per student group, and students can cut out their own cards.  This activity can stand on its own, or if  you are teaching the Investigating Brassicas Around the World lesson, you can extend this activity by instructing students to match their Structure/Function pairs with the Brassica vegetables they observed in the lesson.  This activity can also be used to begin a discussion about how plant breeding focuses on different plant structures, which has contributed to the variation we observe in different Brassica vegetables.

This is a page on the Fast Plants website, describing the Tall Plant variety of Fast Plants (Brassica rapa). This page includes suggestions for investigations and teaching applications using this seed variety.

This is a page on the Fast Plants website, describing the Variegated variety of Fast Plants (Brassica rapa). This page includes suggestions for investigations and teaching applications using this seed variety.

Download the complete instructions for a high school level inheritance inquiry, using Wisconsin Fast Plants. In this investigation, students gather their own evidence to explain how inheritance works. As they observe three generations of Wisconsin Fast Plants, students unravel a paternity mystery: What was the father’s phenotype? Was it the same as the mother’s phenotype or the offspring’s phenotype? Or is it something entirely different? As first, then second generations of plants grow, students make observations that serve as evidence to support or refute their explanations about the inheritance of two easily observable traits that demonstrate Mendelian patterns of simple dominant / recessive genotypes. Complete kits are available from Carolina Biological for this investigation, or everything to grow Fast Plants can be built or obtained locally, using the instructions available on the Fast Plants website.

In this investigation, students will gather their own evidence to explain how inheritance works. As they observe three generations of Wisconsin Fast Plants, students will unravel a mystery of paternity: What is the father’s phenotype? Is it the same as the mother’s phenotype or the offspring’s phenotype? Or is it something entirely different? As the generations of plants grow, students will make observations that will serve as evidence to support or refute their explanations about the inheritance of a trait.

This video is provided by Wisconsin Fast Plants, and introduces the plant life cycle. The video features a 40-day time lapse of the Fast Plants from seeds during germination, through flowering and reproduction, until harvesting seeds at the end of the cycle. This recording runs for 02:19 minutes in length. Additional videos about planting with Fast Plants are available to view separately.

This is a jpg version of the Wisconsin Fast Plants life cycle that is found on our website. These Fast Plant illustrations were drawn by Alison Schroeer.

On YouTube: Time lapse video of Wisconsin Fast Plants growing from planted seed through flowering to seed production, set to music! Time lapse just makes them grow a little faster than they do in real life -- this video shows approximately 40 days, the time it takes to produce the next generation.

On YouTube: Time lapse video of Wisconsin Fast Plants growing from planted seed through flowering to seed production, set to music! Time lapse just makes them grow a little faster than they do in real life -- this video shows approximately 40 days, the time it takes to produce the next generation.

This video is provided by Wisconsin Fast Plants and demonstrates how to tend and pollinate Fast Plants as they grow and develop. While both tending to and pollinating Fast Plants is the recommended approach, this video features an experiment to illustrate the effect that tending and pollination has on the plant's growth. It includes a 40-day time lapse, where viewers can watch the differences between a plant that is thinned and pollinated, one that is tended but not pollinated, and one that is pollinated but not tended. This recording runs for 03:53 minutes in length. Additional videos about planting with Fast Plants are available to view separately.

This is a page on the Fast Plants website, describing the Yellow-Green Leaf variety of Fast Plants (Brassica rapa). This page includes suggestions for investigations and teaching applications using this seed variety.