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Plant Awareness Disparity Scale

This document discusses plant blindness, which refers to the inability to recognize the importance of plants. It outlines several symptoms of plant blindness, including failing to notice plants, seeing them as backdrops rather than living organisms, and not understanding their roles in ecosystems. The document notes that plant blindness is more common in cultures with less emphasis on indigenous knowledge of plants. However, it also paradoxically exists alongside gardening hobbies. To overcome plant blindness, the document argues for early education providing equal exposure to plants, microbes, and animals to foster future plant scientists and a more plant-aware community.

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Evelyn Riel
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45 views

Plant Awareness Disparity Scale

This document discusses plant blindness, which refers to the inability to recognize the importance of plants. It outlines several symptoms of plant blindness, including failing to notice plants, seeing them as backdrops rather than living organisms, and not understanding their roles in ecosystems. The document notes that plant blindness is more common in cultures with less emphasis on indigenous knowledge of plants. However, it also paradoxically exists alongside gardening hobbies. To overcome plant blindness, the document argues for early education providing equal exposure to plants, microbes, and animals to foster future plant scientists and a more plant-aware community.

Uploaded by

Evelyn Riel
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Plant Awareness Disparity Scale:

Importance of Plants
Plants are very important for ecosystem (Çil & Yanmaz, 2017).
Plants provide humans with food stuffs used for things other than energy, paper,
wood, clothes, medicines and many other products (Fančovičová & Prokop, 2014)
Plants produce energy necessary to maintain their vital activities by performing
photosynthesis (Çil & Yanmaz, 2017).
Plants are home for many living organisms like birds, insects and other
invertebrates (Çil & Yanmaz, 2017).
Plant prevent erosion and also help reduce the damage caused by the wind in the
environment (Çil & Yanmaz, 2017).
Plants are raw materials for soap, varnish, oil, paint, cream and many industrial
fields (Çil & Yanmaz, 2017).
Plants are important in the environmental sphere insuring shade, noise
abatement, erosion prevention and windbreaks. (Fančovičová & Prokop, 2014)
Decreases in plant diversity are primarily caused by human beings. As such, it
should be humans who are responsible for the protection and recovery of the
Earth’s threatened diversity (Fančovičová & Prokop, 2014)
People’s view of plants, major components of natural ecosystems, have been
largely overlooked (Fančovičová & Prokop, 2014)
Few organisms have such a direct impact on food and ecological security, climate
and environmental sustainability, water and nutrient cycles, medicine and general
natural beauty

Status of plant diversity in Philippines


Many plant species nearly all over the world are under serious threat due to the
reasons like deforestation, air, water and land pollution, unconscious
industrialization, overgrazing and rapid population growth (Çil & Yanmaz, 2017).
This is detrimental to society, as plant biodiversity is in a rapid but near-silent
decline that threatens the stability of all Earth’s ecosystems (Jose, Wu & Kamoun,
2019)
We have a duty to conserve plants for the health of current and future
generations (MacKenzie, Kuebbing, Barak, Bletz, Dudney, Gill, Nocco, Young &
Tonietto, 2019)
Definition of Plant Blindness
The ability of people to perceive and differentiate individuals of the same/or
different species is a fundamental skill that enables people to define and
categorize the world around them. (Rosch, Mervis, Gray, Johnson, & Boyes-
Braem, 1976 / Batke, Dallimore, Bostock, 2020)Plant blindness has been used to
indicate students’ lack of concern for plants (Zaid & Iksan, 2022).
Students do not feel the importance of plant to the environment (Zaid & Iksan,
2022)
Plant blindness has recently found its way into researchers because it is already
considered as a major environmental issue (Acacio, Andal, Jarata, Nazareta &
Noguera, 2019).

Plant blindness defined as inability to see or notice the plants in one’s own
environment, leading to: [1] the inability to recognize the importance of plants in
the biosphere, and [2] inability to appreciate the aesthetic and unique biological
features of the life forms belong to Plant kingdom; and [3] the misguided,
anthropocentric ranking of plants as inferior to animals leading the erroneous
conclusion that they are unworthy of human consideration (Wandersee &
Schussler, 1999, 2001).
Humans beings are unable to recognize or see plants despite their common
existence around them (Çil & Yanmaz, 2017).
People tend to overlook plants as living organism viewing them as unassuming
backdrops (Jose, Wu & Kamoun, 2019).
Plant blindness extends to those who fail to recognize the importance of plants in
the biosphere and in human affairs. (Jose, Wu & Kamoun, 2019).
Plants tend to be underrepresented in biology curricular despite being
indispensable to all other life on Earth and are hugely prevalent in the biosphere
(Jose, Wu & Kamoun, 2019).
One of the major symptoms of plant blindness is the tendency to overlook plants,
either because of lack knowledge about these organism, their visual
homogeneity, their generally non-threatening nature or the lack of visual cues
such as movement or rapid changes (Wandersee & Schussler, 1999, 2001).
Another symptoms of plant blindness is the failure to distinguish between the
differing biology of plants and animals (Jose, Wu & Kamoun, 2019).
Symptoms of plant blindness:
1. Failing to see, take notice of, or focus attention on the plants in one’s daily
life
2. Thinking that plants are merely the backdrop for animal life
3. Misunderstanding what kinds of matter and energy plant require to stay
alive
4. Overlooking the importance of plant to one’s daily affairs.
5. Failing to distinguish between the differing time scales of plant and animal
activity
6. Lacking hands-on experiences in growing, observing, and identifying plants
in own geographic region
7. Failing to explain the basic plant science underlying nearby plant
communities
8. Lacking awareness that plants are central to carbon cycle – a key
biogeochemical cycle
9. Being sensitive to the aesthetic qualities of plants and their structure.
People typically tend to know less about plants than animals
Plant blindness is a matter of perception (Thomas, Ougham and Sanders, 2020)
Humans-plant relationships are fundamentally conditioned by cultural factors
(Thomas, Ougham and Sanders, 2020).
A paradoxical aspect of the plant blindness phenomenon is the apparently strong
culture of gardening and visiting botanical and show gardens for leisure (Thomas,
Ougham and Sanders, 2020).
Plant Blindness to Plant Awareness Disparity
Botanist and educators lamented the disparities in attention towards plants and
animals (Parsley, 2020).
Biology and zoology seemed to be synonymous (Parsley, 2020)
Plant blindness differs across culture (Parsley, 2020).
Indigenous people tend to have much more appreciation for plants (Parsley,
2020).
Plant blindness criticized for its history of being disability metaphor (ableist).
Visual metaphor, equates disability (blindness) with negative or undesirable trait
(being unaware or apathetic towards plant) (Parsley, 2020)
Plant awareness disparity addresses the ableism critique that plant blindness has
faced. (Parsley, 2020).
Overcoming Plant Blindness
Early educational experiences providing equal exposure to plants, microbes and
animals are crucial for counteracting plant blindness and encouraging future
generations of plant scientist (Jose, Wu & Kamoun, 2019).
We should aim to counteract plant blindness in the wider community by raising
awareness about the importance of plants in human affairs (Jose, Wu & Kamoun,
2019).
We hypothesize that early and iterative, well-planned, meaningful and mindful
education (both scientific and social) about plants – coupled with a variety of
personal, guided, direct experiences with growing plants – may be the best way to
overcome what we currently see as the human default condition (Wandersee &
Schussler, 2001)
The exposure to and development of an interest towards plants at an early age
can positively affects an individual’s relationship towards plant and natural
environment (Hershey, 1996 / Batke, Dallimore and Bostock, 2020)

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