TY2015: The wonder of plants

Aaron Desmond, Coláiste An Spioraid Naoimh

I recently participated in a week-long course in the school of BEES at UCC. During the week we had many lectures from different teachers in the school, my favourite being a Plant Science lecture given by Prof. Peter Jones.

Going into the lecture I was expecting myself to be in no way interested in the topic but I was mistaken. Prof. Peter Jones’ enthusiasm definitely helped but I also found what he was talking about very interesting. At the beginning of the lecture he said that his goal was to show us that plants were just, if not more interesting as animals. He did the job.

During the lecture he showed us just how sophisticated plants were and how intelligent they were. Using a video of the famed carnivorous plant the Venus fly trap he showed us how it has learnt to count. He explained to us how much more efficient plants were than any animals including us, humans. Plants don’t have an excretory system, they waste nothing. They produce food through either the process of photosynthesis where they get there energy from the sun or they take it from the soil. But they only take exactly what they need, nothing more. One of the last things he showed us was how successful plants are at adapting to even the harshest conditions, such as the desserts of Africa and Antarctica.

Overall it was a really enjoyable week in which I can honestly say I learned a lot.