Collections Connection

Educational resources using collections-based science

The Collections Connection is an online educational resource to guide student participants in building knowledge of California native plants and collections-based science as a means to provide educational opportunities in biodiversity science and inspire students to contemplate careers in disciplines relevant to plant science and natural history collections. These modules are relevant to both undergraduate and high school students. We invite students and educators to utilize these resources in your classrooms and curricula.

Module 1: 
Plants in a Changing World—California Diversity, Species Distributions, and Climate Change

Through this video students can explore the incredible plant diversity of California, one of the world’s 36 biodiversity hotspots, and how climate change may threaten our state's native diversity. The accompanying exercise utilizes the Garden's Herbarium specimens and various mapping resources to examine characteristics of several native plants, map their distributions, and through modeling approaches, determine how climate change may influence future distributions and diversity.

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Module 1 Exercise: California Diversity, Species Distributions, and Climate Change

Module 2: 
The Santa Lucia Fir—A Story of Ex-situ Plant Conservation

Join CalBG conservation professionals to learn about ex-situ plant conservation and efforts to protect one of the rarest fir trees in the world, the Santa Lucia fir (Abies bracteata).

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Module 3: 
Learn about herbarium digitization by exploring the southern rocky project

The Southern Rocky Mountain Region supports a rich and fragile flora of diverse habitats and narrow ecological niches derived from unique geographic origins and evolutionary histories. This herbarium digitization project, funded by the National Science Foundation, aimed to build digital resources to document plant diversity and ecological niches and to promote scientific investigation and public understanding of this ecologically important yet imperiled region through the digitization of unique specimens held at the Herbarium of California Botanic Garden (CalBG). This online exhibit highlights the Herbarium’s unique and project-relevant specimens as well as the efforts to digitize those collections.

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Module 4: 
Learn About the calbg herbarium's contributions to the endless forms thematic collections network (TCN)

The Endless Forms Thematic Collections Network (TCN) aimed to build digital resources to document the vascular plants in 15 families that exhibit unique adaptations to extreme environments, and to promote scientific investigation and public understanding of these potentially imperiled plants. Through a recent award made by the National Science Foundation, the Herbarium at California Botanic Garden (RSA) enhanced the Endless Forms TCN by digitizing nearly 80,000 herbarium specimens representing all 15 families, some of which are especially diverse (cacti, agave, spurge) in California, a world biodiversity hotspot.

This online exhibit highlights the Herbarium’s unique and project-relevant specimens as well as the efforts to digitize those collections.

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Suspendisse varius enim in eros elementum tristique. Duis cursus, mi quis viverra ornare, eros dolor interdum nulla, ut commodo diam libero vitae erat. Aenean faucibus nibh et justo cursus id rutrum lorem imperdiet. Nunc ut sem vitae risus tristique posuere.