January 2025
Planning for the 2025 Botanical University Challenge is well underway. Questions set, people to ask them invited and entries from teams are starting to arrive. The deadline for entry is 19 January, and there is usually a last minute rush!
October 2024
We think that BUC has a significant impact on students in the UK and Ireland who are interested in plants, and careers with plants. This is supported by feedback from those participated in Botanical University Challenge 2024, and who attended the Second Student Botany Festival. You can read it in our 2024 Impact Report.
September 2024: Planning for 2025!
As soon as one year’s competition and festival is over, planning starts for the next. Watch out for updates about #BUC2025!
August 2024: Second Student Botany Festival
The Second Student Botany Festival, open to all BUC2024 contestants, followed the quiz competition at the University of Oxford from Wednesday 28th to Friday 30th August 2024.
It started with one minute flash presentations by some of the students about their enthusiasms or research involving plants, followed by a formal dinner and evening of networking. The next day included talks about careers with plants in academia or industry as well as a careers exhibition by companies, charities and other organisations. The keynote lecture was by Professor Alex Antonelli, Director of Science at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. On the final day, the students had a choice among several different workshops including conifer identification at the Oxford Arboretum, floral dissection, scientific writing, botanical illustration and a mini-FISC plant ID quiz.
Even the weather supported BUC, staying warm and dry. Several of the festival events were held outside in The Queens College, Oxford Botanic Garden and also the Harcourt Arboretum at Nuneham Courtenay.
August 2024: Finals of BUC2024
The BUC 2024 Live Semi-final and Final were at the University of Oxford on Wednesday 28th August. Each team was asked a new type of question, a grid of 16 plant names where they had to pick out groupings within them.
The teams were also given a live plant and asked questions about it. All the other questions were free-answers where teams gave their answers verbally. The teams from York and Cambridge won the semifinals and then Cambridge was the overall winner in a very close fought final. The questions were asked by Dr Lucy Sutherland, Director of the National Botanic Garden of Wales and Professor Lindsay Turnbull, University of Oxford.
February 2024: Quarterfinal, 28 February 2024
The questions in the Quarterfinals were asked by Leif Bersweden, author and nature communicator. They started with multiple-choice questions, followed by four rounds of free-answer questions where teams gave their answers verbally. This was a chance for the audience to get a feel for each team’s approach and expertise. At the end of the Quarter Finals Plymouth and Reading were on identical scores! This meant there were tie-breaker questions until finally University of Reading edged ahead to join teams from the Universities of York, Cambridge and the Royal Botanic Garden Kew in the semi-finals in August.
Results of Round 2, 21 February 2024
Round 2 was chaired by Micheline Sheehy Skeffington, President of the Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland. She asked the teams a further 50 multiple-choice questions ranging from plant identification, books and foods to plant biochemistry and anatomy. Round 2 can be seen on our YouTube channel.
At the end, the 8 teams that scored the highest number of points went through to the Quarterfinals. These were from the Universities of Cambridge, York, Oxford, Plymouth, Reading and Trinity College Dublin, along with teams from the Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew and Edinburgh.
Results of Round 1, 14th February 2024
Round 1 was chaired by Sarah Dalrymple, Reader in Conservation Ecology, Biological and Environmental Sciences, Liverpool John Moores University. Knowledgeable but humane, she presented the 50 multiple-choice questions to the 28 waiting teams. After a Valentine’s Day themed round, there were questions on plant identification, plant genetics, plants around the world and finally questions about interactions between plants and insects.
At the end, the 18 teams that scored 25 or more points went through to Round 2. Round 1 can be seen on our YouTube channel.
February 2024 – First 3 rounds of #BUC2024
We had 28 teams in Botanical University Challenge 2024 by the deadline of 31st January. Teams with the most amazing and wonderful names!
- University of Aberdeen – Aberdeen Alders
- Aberystwyth University – Go With The Phloem
- Anglia Ruskin University – Ruskin Roses
- University of Bristol – Sorbrainius bristoliensis
- University of Cambridge – Backs Buttercups
- Durham University – Durham Rock Roses
- University of Dundee – Dundee Daylilys
- University of Edinburgh – Leaf, Laugh, Love
- Edge Hill University – Sedge Hill
- Eden Project University Centre – Rhizomaniacs
- University of Galway – The Plantaholic Anonymous
- Harper Adams University – Harper Hemlocks
- Imperial College London – Cereal Killers
- Lancaster University – Lancaster Floral Fanatics
- The University of Manchester – Aconite Acolytes
- Nottingham University – The Merry STEMs
- University of Oxford – The Rogue Arums
- Oxford Brookes University – Ragworts
- University of Plymouth – Plymouth Pears
- University of Portsmouth – The Portatoes
- The University of Reading – Stamen To That
- Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh – Moss Hysteria
- Royal Botanic Gardens Kew – Stolon Victory
- Royal Horticultural Society- Rosemoor Rookies
- University of Southampton – Grow a Pear
- Trinity College Dublin – The Trinity Tristerix
- University College Dublin – House of the Rhizome Sun
- University of York – Take It or Leaf It
#BUC2024 – How is it in January 2024?
Everything is coming together for #BUC2024! The venue is organised (Internet and then University of Oxford!), questions are being checked and teams are registering. By 19th January over 20 teams of students from universities and similar institutions had registered, but several more were still making last minute efforts to get a team together. To help, the registration deadline was extended to the end of the month, 31st January.
Jonathan Mitchley’s Advent Botany thoughts in December 2023
Here is Dr M’s contribution to #AdventBotany2023 #BotanyBooks with his all-time favourite botany book: Francis Hallé’s In Praise of Plants. (With mention in passing of two other of Hallé’s publications).
“Humans have always preferred animals to plants, no matter what the time and place. I state this with scarcely any fear of seeming demented.”
So, Francis Hallé begins his book “In Praise of Plants.” (Hallé, 2002).
Hallé writes clearly and passionately about what we might now call “plant blindness” or “plant awareness disparity” and in such an original language and expression which reveals this man’s depth of passion, unbounded praise and poetic reverence for plants in the extraordinary 300 pages that follow.
I don’t now recall when I first found this book, but it was the resonance with my own deep, feelings for plants that drew me into it. It was the kindred green spirit of Hallé for sure, but more than that, what kept me reading and indeed since then, rereading, was the wisdom, the plethora of new perspectives he offered and the written style, the original and beautiful language, a wonderful, often startling and amusing take on the wonders and the strangeness of the green stuff! As one reviewer has put it: “Hallé offers not just an ode to plants, but an invitation to redefine our understanding of life”.
Alongside the text are accompanying graphic illustrations, line drawings, cleanly done, bold and unsurprisingly reminiscent of the images from the classic volume on tropical trees and forests from an architectural perspective which he co-authored and which was enthusiastically introduced to the botany class by Professor John Harper when I was an undergraduate at Bangor University in the 1970s (Hallé, Oldeman & Tomlinson, 1999).
Hallé is serious about the importance of drawings rather than photographs in his work, and how they amount to a dialogue with the plant, opening up space for reflection. More of his inspired drawings and poetic allusions can be found in his Atlas of Poetic Botany (Hallé, 2018) such as the Giant Lily that inspired the architect:
Getting back to In Praise of Plants, the chapter titles, and especially the sub-title within the chapters, (examples below) reveal the author’s individual and, at times, controversial approach:
- Plants, Animals and Humans – Who cares about Palms?
- A visit to the Landscape of Form – Plants, vast fixed surfaces
- The Cell – Where the horticulturalist precedes the biologist
- Plant Biochemistry in a Nutshell – A Regrettable Inelegance
- Evolution – Must we choose between Darwin and Lamarck?
- Of Other Living Beings – Immanence and Transcendence
- Ecology – Noah’s Two Arks
- Epilogue – The Two Faces of Botany
Hallé is unimpressed with anthropocentrism and anthropomorphism directed at the living world, and at plants in particular. Hallé notes that as humans we have a love for contemplating our navels. Humans, he therefore surmises, have a passion for animals, and so we talk much about animals and the four-legged creatures we can observe because we are them ourselves, so it fascinates us.
Plants on the other hand, well:
“Plants are to us at the same time too familiar and yet too strange to inspire the sympathy and admiration they deserve.”
Hallé also rails against the plant apologists who try to explain plants in terms of the similarities with animals, wannabe animals forced to do essentially the same things just a bit differently. Instead, Hallé makes clear the fundamental and vital differences between plants and animals.
“We stand before vegetal organisms whose main feature, to my eyes, is how profoundly different they are from human beings. It is as if we were visiting a distant planet and encountered a form of extraterrestrial life with which we share no language – a form based on principles that are no our own.”
In Praise of Plants is thus a celebration of the differences between plants and animals and why that matters to plants and animals, but also why it matters to us!
One example will suffice here:
”Plants and animals gather energy by difference means, and the forms of energy they use are different. This divergence in mode of energy capture leads to distinctive and important traits that separate plants and animals. It is a fundamental difference; others are mainly consequences of this basic choice between two sources of energy.”
Hallé also takes on some of the commonly spouted misconceptions about plants, for example the preposterous idea that plants don’t move!
“Fixed does not mean immobile. That is a preconception I wish to demolish with vigour.”
And of course, in subsequent paragraphs he does just that! Read the book to follow his argument but, as a taster, here is his rather delicious conclusion:
“…plants are not immobile, but rather that their movement is not seen in the scale of human times. In their own time, they never stop moving, and we disappear, erased by our own mobility! Remember that the movement of plants is essentially growth. To say that plants are immobile results from an anthropomorphism that impedes our seeing beyond our own time scale. It is as stupid as the history of aphids: In my memory, says the aphid, no one has ever seen a gardener die. Everyone knows that gardeners are immortal.”
If you love plants and you have not read this book, please seek it out and read it! I am confident you will find perspectives new and inspiring; you’ll also find controversies that you may not always agree with, but then again what is science without controversy?!
For sure, you’ll also find observations and analyses that are downright funny! For example, one of Hallé’s cartoon-like illustrations is the thought experiment he plays with the modes of death in plants and dogs! In a section entitled “two ways of dying” Hallé observes that plants and animals do not die in the same way. An animal is alive or dead. Falling leaves and the dropping of low branches do not have true equivalents in the animal world. Most plants are capable of dying at an extremity while continuing to grow at another point. Cork oak, for example, can regenerate after fire damage. Transfer this strategy to a dog and the result is grotesque!
For this and many other reasons, I find this a book about plants unlike any other. The title tells us this is a book in praise of plants, and we cannot have too many of those! Plants are at once beautiful, fascinating and important, and in this 21st century of environmental crisis after crisis plants offer us hope and maybe even a little optimism, but only if we truly embrace and praise them in the manner espoused by Hallé so eloquently in this volume.
As we contemplate how to deliver conservation and sustainability of the planet – our sinking ark – we need champions for plants like Hallé who, for example, points out the futility of the Noah’s Ark metaphor. “Not one, but two Noah’s arks are needed. The first would be called Phyton, and would be the flagship. The other, Zoon, would be of little interest and left behind.”
Finally, this book originally written in French (Éloge de la plante) has been lovingly translated by David Lee, who deserves his own praise for making this wonderful treatise available for an English-speaking audience, so I end with a quote for his foreword:
“Francis shares a profound affection, yes love, for the plants studied all these years, even in the face of indifference and impending loss. My intuition is that we have a profound emotional connection to the green mantle that supports and surrounds us, and that has preceded our own existence. We need to explore that connection more deeply, and that quest is central to our own existence as we look for meaning in our lives as individuals and as part of the natural world.”
References
Hallé, F. 2002. In Praise of Plants. Timber Press, Portland, Oregon. (Originally published in French as : Éloge de la Plante, pour une Nouvelle Biologie. Editions du Seuil, Paris, 1999).
Hallé, F., Oldeman, R.A.A., & Tomlinson, P.B. 1978. Tropical Trees and Forests: an Architectural Analysis. Springer-Verlag, Berlin.
Hallé, F. 2018. Atlas of Poetic Botany. The MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts. (Originally published in French as: Atlas de botanique poetique. Flammarion, Paris, 2016).
Find interviews and more about this extraordinary botanist by following these links and google “Francis Hallé botanist” for many more:
The transformative power of In Praise of Plants by Francis Hallé
Interview with Francis Hallé, botanist.
Get Creative competition in 2023
We know many enjoy the creative side of botany and are budding with artistic talents. We held a competition for photographs, fine art and multimedia with the themes ‘Pigments’, ‘Biodiversity’ and ‘Pioneering Botanists’. It was announced in BUC’s newsletter The Thymes’ . The judges were the competition’s originator Thomas McBride from the BUC 2022 winning Nottingham team, Dr Chris Thorogood (renowned botanist & artist) and Susan Gritton Medcalf (professional singer & botanist).
The winners were announced at the BUC Student Botany Festival on 5 July 2023. They were: Photograph, Gemma Brain University of York (Pink Plumeria Pigments), Fine Art Joint Winners, Emily Skinner University of Reading (Flowers from home) and Conor Haynes-Mannering University of Nottingham (Late Carboniferous biodiversity; Multimedia Ellen Baker University of Oxford (inspiring sources Marjorie Blamey)
Heading for the Final Rounds and BUC Student Botany Festival in July 2023
The BUC team are busy as the final rounds of #BUC2023 approach. This includes checking that the technology will be OK on the day, preparing for when everyone arrives at University of Nottingham and organising the BUC Student Botany Festival.
We have also found time to write about the history and aims of BUC for the member’s magazine of the British Ecological Society. You can read it here.
You can also read about the thinking behind Botanical University Challenge in Your starter for 10: How can a TV quiz format help course avoid extinction, written by one of its founders, John Warren for the Times Higher Education on-line ‘Campus’.
Round 2, Botanical University Challenge 2023
Round 2 started 14:00 GMT on Wednesday 22 February, with 9 teams at the start. There were 5 short rounds of multiple choice questions and then rounds where the teams will have to speak their answers! The questions were asked by Dr Tiina Sarkinen, Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, and Professor Paul Ashton, Edge Hill University.
The result was that teams from the Universities of Cambridge, Manchester Metropolitan, Oxford and the Eden Project had the highest scores and thus places in the semi-final on 5 July 2023. However, due to prior commitments the Stone Roses (Manchester Metropolitan University) were not able to be present. Therefore the Ptrinity Pteridophytes team that came fifth would take their place.
- Darwin’s Diabolical Deuterstomes (University of Cambridge)
- Malus Intent (The Eden Project)
- The Ptrinity Pteridophytes (Trinity College, Dublin)
- The Bad Birches (University of Oxford)
Round 1, Botanical University Challenge 2023
An afternoon of botanical questions on 15 February was posed by Leif Bersweden and Henry Ford to the 25 teams. Introduced by Jonathan Mitchley and John Warren, with the tech team working in the background so that signals through the internet involving at least 30 places all emerged as one YouTube stream for the audience.
The multiple-choice questions covered: British and Irish Plants; World Plants; Anatomy, Physiology, Plant Health and Molecular Biology; Plant Ecology; Botanical Terms; and finally a round of 10 questions designed by the chairs.
The chairs entertained and informed us with the answers to the questions. Between rounds, Jonathan chatted with several of the teams, who were remarkably composed. The teams scores gradually drifted upwards as each round ended, but many of them were so successful that by the end of the final round there were 9 with the top scores, and a further 14 within the next 10 points. The teams with the highest scores were from Manchester Metropolitan University and University of Cambridge.
A quarterfinal should start with 8 teams, but teams from University of Bristol and Trinity College, Dublin were in joint 8th place with identical scores. So there was a tie-breaker round to see which would be in the quarterfinal. However, after a further 10 questions – their scores were still identical! So, both will start in the quarterfinals.
Teams in the quarterfinals will therefore be:
- The Bristol Pistils (University of Bristol)
- Darwin’s Diabolical Deuterstomes (University of Cambridge)
- Malus Intent (The Eden Project)
- The Galway Ginkgos (University of Galway)
- The Motley Kew (Royal Botanic Garden, Kew)
- The Stone Roses (Manchester Metropolitan University)
- The Bad Birches (University of Oxford)
- Ptrinity Pteridophytes (Trinity College, Dublin)
- Warwick Willows (Warwick University)
Teams entering BUC2023
Following the deadline, we have 24 25 teams entering #BUC2023. We are delighted to welcome several universities to the competition for the first time – Bristol, Dundee, East Anglia, Exeter, Trinity College Dublin, University College Dublin – and University of Portsmouth!
The full list is:
- University of Aberdeen
- University of Aberystwyth
- University of Bristol
- University of Cambridge
- University of Dundee
- University of Durham
- University of East Anglia
- Edge Hill University
- The Eden Project Learning
- University of Exeter
- University of Galway
- Imperial College, London
- Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
- University of Lancaster
- University of Liverpool
- University of Manchester
- Manchester Metropolitan University
- University of Nottingham
- University of Oxford
- University of Portsmouth
- University of Reading
- University of Southampton
- Trinity College, Dublin
- University College, Dublin
- University of Warwick
January 2023: Team deadline now 23 January
So much is happening as we prepare for the first two days of Botanical University Challenge 2023 on 15 and 22 February, and the final along with the Student Botany Festival on 5-6 July. Another eminent plant scientist has accepted our invitation to chair the finals in July. She is Professor Beverley Glover, Director of Cambridge University Botanic Garden and Head of the Evolution and Development Group in the Department of Plant Sciences at the University of Cambridge. The questions are being prepared and scrutinised. All the IT for the two on-line rounds in February is being checked out. There has been an on-line briefing meeting for students members of #BUC2023 teams, with a recording available here.
December 2022: Towards #BUC2023
Lots has been happening in the last two months. Organisations and teams from the UK and Ireland have started to reply, with promises of teams, team names and questions. The next most important part, the questions for #BUC2023, are being designed, checked and re-checked by a team of scientists, with help including from the Royal Society of Biology.
Four eminent botanists have accepted invitations to ask the questions in February. They are Dr Leif Bersweden, Dr Henry Ford, Dr Tiina Sarkinen and Professor Paul Ashton.
The Thymes, the newsletter of #BUC appeared at the British and Irish Botanical Conference of the Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland in November, and also the Annual Meeting of the British Ecological Society Annual Meeting this month. The second issue is being edited ready for release in January.
October 2022: The Thymes
The first issue of The Thymes has finally been released to the world! This is a newsletter around Botanical University Challenge, proposed by students who had been in the competition. It has been designed and written by them with Jonathan Mitchley acting as editor-in-chief, along with input from some others in the BUC Team. Four issues a year are planned, to coincide with key times in the Botanical University Challenge cycle – October, January, April and June.
The content is all about the competition, botany and botanists. As well as information about the current BUC competition, it will profile past teams, the careers of students who competed in previous competition, information about botanical courses and careers, and features about the diverse careers of other botanists.
The idea is to highlight that modern botany is serious, and fun, across a surprising diversity of careers. In the office or the outdoors, practical or theoretical, working mainly with people or with plants, in the UK or abroad, as a member or leader of a team, as their main job or in leisure time, botanists are active in very many different roles during their careers.
October 2022
Getting plans for the 2023 competition firmer. There will be two days of on-line questions in February 2023. Wednesday 15 February will be the big day for all teams when they compete head-to-head with MCQ questions, starting at 14:00 GMT. The 8 with the highest scores will then be able to compete in pairs in the quarterfinals the following week, 22 February from 14:00 GMT. This time the questions will be free-form, needing a spoken answer.
The four winners in each contest will then compete in the next rounds on 5 July to find the overall winner of Botanical University Challenge 2023! This will be held live at the University of Nottingham but streamed around the world (thanks to Dr Suzie Lydon, the local organiser).
There will also be a student botany festival on 5 and 6 July at University of Nottingham after the contest. This will be open to all the 2023 BUC contestants. More about this after we finalise the details.
August 2022: Looking forward to #BUC2023
Planning for the next competition has started. It will again be two days of on-line competition. However in 2023 we will bring back live competition for the final rounds, as well as streaming them world-wide. The University of Nottingham, home of the 2022 winners, will host live semifinals and the final at the University Park campus. They will also be streamed.
23 February 2022: #BUC2022 Round 2
The final rounds of Botanical University Challenge in 2022 let us see and hear the 8 teams as they decided on their answers. There was tension as they talked around the topic until the chair asked for their final answer, and then revealed whether it was correct or not.
This time the chairs were Dr Sandy Knapp, Merit Researcher at the Natural History Museum, London, Professor Lena Struwe, Director of the Chrysler Herbarium at Rutgers University, USA and Dr Raj Whitlock, Senior Lecturer at the University of Liverpool, UK.
The event can be seen on YouTube.
At the end of the contest, the team from the Botanical Society at University of Nottingham Sutton Bonington campus were the overall winners, with Manchester Metropolitan University close runner-up. Both teams were given copies of The Green Planet book signed by Sir David Attenborough, along with gift tokens and more guides from the Field Studies Council.
Members of all the teams competing on Day 2 were given some additional guides from the Field Studies Council.
16 February 2022: #BUC2022 Round 1
It was so exciting! After months in preparation, the 18 teams faced questions from Professor Emerita Honor Prentice, Lund University, Sweden and Dr Chris Thorogood, Deputy Director and Head of Science at the Oxford Botanic Garden and Arboretum. The questions were multiple-choice but the answers wern’t easy.
The questions ranged across botanical topics asking about identification of plants, their growth and nutrition habits, technical terminology and about their uses as foods. The entire event can be viewed on YouTube.
After 6 rounds of 10 questions 8 of the teams were ahead, although only by a few points. These went through to Round 2 on 23 February. They were from the Universities of Cambridge, Durham, Liverpool, Manchester, Manchester Metropolitan, Nottingham Sutton Bonington, the Open University and RHS Wisley.
Souvenir t-shirts and some guides from the Field Studies Council were given to members of all the teams that entered.
14 February 2022: Radio interview about #BUC2022
Listen to this interview with Jonathan Mitchley on the Phil Kennedy show on BBC RADIO BERKS 14th Feb 2022 to hear about the excitement building for Botanical University Challenge. The first round is on Wednesday 16th February, with free tickets available through Eventbrite.
8 February 2022
The deadline for teams to enter the competition was 31 January 2022. There are a record number of teams, 18 from the UK and, for the first time, Ireland. The preparations of the technology needed continues as well as final checking of questions. Excitement about the event on social media is becoming greater as we introduce the teams to the world.
There will be five distinguished scientists asking the questions during the event this year. On Wednesday 16th February, in the multiple-choice knock-out round, they will be Professor Emerita Honor Prentice from the University of Lund, Sweden and Dr Chris Thorogood, Deputy Director and Head of Science at the Oxford Botanic Garden and Arboretum. The following Wednesday, 23rd February, the remaining 8 teams will be questioned by Dr Raj Whitlock, Senior Lecturer University of Liverpool, Professor Lena Struwe, director of the Chrysler Herbarium at Rutgers University and Dr Sandy Knapp, Merit Researcher at the Natural History Museum, London.
11 January 2022: More preparations for #BUC2022
Preparation for #BUC2022 is advancing! University teams have decided that they will compete. Questions are being written and checked. Invitations have been accepted to chair and ask the questions on 16 and 23 February. Social media is promoting the event, and plants in general. The Zoom and internet question platforms are being tested. Students have been recruited to help with preparations and events on the day. It is gradually coming together!
4 November 2021: At Botanical Society of America 2021
Guest blog by Dr Min Ya, Harvard University, about the Botanic Trivia quiz at the #Botany2021 annual meeting of the Botanical Society of America in July 2021.
The idea of hosting an American version of the Botanical University Challenge started when Prof. John Warren contacted me in 2020, while I was one of the Society’s student representatives. Following the success of the virtual annual meeting of the Botanical Society of America #Botany2020, despite taking it online at short notice, it became obvious that #Botany2021 would also have to be a completely virtual conference. This time, though, we would know what to do to host a good online conference. Also, the organizers had the time and energy for more events to improve the participants’ online experience, and so included a Botanic Trivia quiz.
John Warren, Dr. M (Jonathan Mitchley), and I had zoom meetings to finalize the plans. We agreed that they would be responsible for the questions and I would be responsible for the logistics. The #Botany2021 conference was in July and the Botanic Trivia was scheduled on the final Friday to give the conference a strong end. It was 12:00 to 13:30 US Eastern Time so participants from as many time zones as possible could join in. A call for participants was sent out after the conference program was out, so all participants could ensure that the Botanic Trivia would not conflict with their talks, or the academic sessions they were attending.
To capture the interest of participants from a variety of academic backgrounds, John Warren and Dr. M decided on six rounds of questions, three picture question rounds and three verbal question rounds. I also discussed with the conference organizers about the prizes and we decided: 3rd prize – free conference T-shirts, 2nd prize – free one-year membership from any of the participating professional societies for all team members (this annual Botany conference is joint between several societies), and the grand 1st prize for the champions – a delicious 50% discount off #Botany2022 registration in Alaska!
I made a poster for the trivia and the call for participants went out on Twitter with special encouragement for professors to team up with their students. I imagined that students might be interested but also intimidated, since it would be easy to think “I do not know enough Botany to not make a fool out of myself”. Teaming up with their advisors would boost the students’ confidence as well as increasing the bond between them. By the sign-up date we had 55 participants in a total of 20 teams.
It came as no surprise that the most challenging part was how to host the quiz in a virtual environment because we wanted:
1) available to all conference participants so that they could watch, be entertained by the questions, and root for the teams;
2) hosts to be able to communicate with all the participants; and
3) the participating teams to be able to communicate amongst themselves.
To solve the first issue, since the conference platform was on Zoom, we used an external platform from www.socialpoint.io to run the trivia, and then the screen sharing function on Zoom to show all the conference and quiz participants the progress of the game.
The second and the third points turned out to be more difficult to solve. After considering all possibilities, I told the teams about the communication options, and most teams chose to use their own ways to communicate amongst themselves since they already knew each other.
Finally, the last day of the conference arrived and it was time for the quiz. John Warren and Dr. M made a short introduction about Botanical University Challenge and the idea of this Botanical Trivia. I did a quick welcome to everyone and an introduction to the rounds, teams, and prizes. Then I opened breakout rooms for teams to enter, shared my screen, and the game started.
Of course, who would really think that our first ever virtual trivia game would run perfectly without any hiccup? We already knew there would be unanticipated challenges during the game, and we soon discovered the first one, which was probably also the biggest challenge. The questions were set to run automatically with a fixed time for the answer. Good though the platform was, there was no timer or count down for each question so teams missed their opportunity for the answers! Noticing that, I stopped the “automatic run” function and started to manually count the time on my phone, then spoke “beep-beep” as a 10s reminder.
Once I started to say “beep-beep”, I saw the number of chat notifications go crazy. I ended up multi-tasking between keeping the time, “beep-beep”, and transitioning between the more than 50 questions and answers. John and Dr. M did fantastic commentaries on each question and answer. I wished that I had been able to just sit down and do nothing but listen to them talk. On my side screen, I could see a few participants with serious faces when discussing with their teammates, and their reactions when they got the answer right or wrong. The excitement showing through the little zoom windows was encouraging, and I then knew that the game was going well.
A few rounds into the game, the 10 teams with the highest scores were neck and neck with each other. By the end of the 4th round, although team Chrysler Herbarium was clearly in the lead, the competition between the top 5 teams was fierce. By the end of the last round, team Let’s Botanize seized the second place with a narrow lead over team Auropurpurea. Chrysler Herbarium was only a two-people team: Prof. Lena Struwe and her student, Megan Ryan. Let’s Botanize was a team of junior scientists, including graduate students Benjamin Goulet-Scott and Jacob Suissa from Harvard University, and Ellie Mendelson, who is a technician at the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University. The third-place team, Auropurpurea, consisted of Prof. Laura Frost, Prof. Laura Lagomarisno and Laura’s students, Janet Mansaray and Laymon Ball.
Despite the minor technical hiccups, I was glad to hear that people had fun in the first trivia game at the #Botany conference! Without a doubt, it would be more fun if held in person, and it’s already on the agenda of the organizers for future #Botany conferences.
I would like to acknowledge the support from the Botanical Society of America, especially Heather Cacanindin, Johanne Stogran, Melanie Link-Perez, and to Steven Bornhoeft for all the technical support. I really appreciate all the people who helped to promote this event via social media and all the people who tweeted about it during and after the event. Of course, it would not have happened without John and Dr. M, who are fun, professional, easy to communicate with, and made the quiz so enjoyable for all the participants. It was such a pleasure to work with them. This was a fantastic start to bring the Botanical University Challenge to the US and go global!
18 October 2021: New logo, old name
Plans for #BUC2022 are starting to come together! Writing questions, inviting distinguished scientists to ask them in the contest, getting the word out to UK and Irish universities, students becoming involved ….
Two developments – a new logo thanks to Mica FI. See it now on this site and the video below (about the topics in the 2022 contest). It will also be in the design for the souvenir t-shirts given to all the student teams.
Also – the contest is back to the name Botanical University Challenge!
3 September 2021: In Spain for LBULE 2021
Guest blog by Professor Carmen Acedo Casado, Universidad de León, Spain
In May 2021, my research group and I organised LBULE 2021 – La Liga Botánica de la Universidad de León, España at our university in Spain. We wanted to disseminate and share our love for botany with our students. The contest was inspired by Botanical University Challenge in the UK so was a way to link with botanists around the world. The name La Liga, of course, came from sports like football. We were delighted that many more students participated in the first LBULE than we expected. It was really exciting that some 70 students from Universidad de León formed 12 teams in response to our call.
We were able to hold the competition in person but we had to adhere to Covid-19 health precautions, as well as schedule the event to avoid teaching times. It was held over three weeks with an initial elimination round and then a semi-final and final. We streamed the question rounds on our YouTube and Facebook channels since the student audience had to be very small due to Covid-19 restrictions.
The questions set were about plants, fungi, lichens and algae, including their names, parts, foods and medicinal uses as well as conservation, history and famous botanists. The students are regularly taught these topics so the competition gave them an opportunity for revision as well as for fun! The students were excited and happy with the contest. Most described the experience as very enjoyable, allowing them to avoid the usual final stress of the end of the academic year and to build relationships with their instructors. They also liked the fact that LBULE 2021 was a way to discover more about botany.
We now planning LBULE 2022, which will be held in May 2022. The final schedule will be decided nearer to the time, but it will be similar to LBULE 2021.
14 August 2021: First announcement of #BUC2022
We’ve started contacting people about competing in #BUC2022. Several have already said that their institution plans to enter a team in February 2022, including University of Edinburgh, University of Lancaster, University of Liverpool and University of Reading (of course!). If you are a student and want to be in your university’s team next year, or want to organise a team,https://twitter.com/0_minyaaa why not make contact email Jonathan Mitchley ([email protected]) for more information?
22 July 2021: #BUC goes to USA!
Two of the people behind Botanical University Challenge, John Warren and Jonathan Mitchley, have taken the #BUC concept to the Botanical Society of America annual meeting. Through the wonders of the internet, and Min Ya, a student representative from the American society, they are hosting a botany trivia quiz for the conference delegates on 23rd July. They promise to report back on how it went!
2 June 2021: Meet #wildflowerhour
Botanical University Challenge 2022 will certainly include questions about the names of flowers that can be found in the wild around the UK. How to learn them? So many different ways! Sometimes starting from parents in childhood; teachers at school; friends during walks in the town or countryside; courses at university or other organisations; books about plants. The internet has opened up so many more ways. Many, many pictures; videos of plant-filled landscapes; apps that aim to identify plants from pictures for you automatically; websites and social media where volunteers will try to identify plants.
One social media site that takes you through the year with gorgeous pictures is #wildflowerhour on Twitter. From 8 – 9 pm every Sunday there is a stream of hundreds, even thousands, of named photos of flowers seen the previous week. If you are into social media, it is well worth following to see the changing common and rare plants that bloom through the seasons around the UK.
21 May 2021: #BUC inspires LEBULE 2021 in Spain
Inspired by Botanical University Contest 2021, Carmen Casado and the University of León in Spain have been organising their own botanical challenge among their students. It began in early May and reached the semi-final on 20 May 2021.
30 April 2021: After #BUC2021, meet #BUC2022!
So, after the success of #BUC2021, what’s happening about #BUC2022? Well, the team that brought you #BUC is already working on the 2022 contest. It will be held using Zoom, which lets university teams from everywhere in the UK compete without having to arrange travel.
The dates are fixed: Wednesday 16th February 2022 for the heats to decide the teams for the quarter-finals. Then Wednesday 23rd February 2022 for contests up to the final. Save the dates!