The acquisition of a steady state porometer, portable leaf area meter, portable photosynthesis system, and accessories for these instruments plus a portable computer will provide the students with an opportunity to utilize state-of-the-art instrumentation to measure and analyze growth, productivity, and photosynthesis data in freshman, junior, and senior laboratory courses designed to teach plant physiological and ecological principles as well as enhance undergraduate research projects in the plant sciences. Experiments are designed so that students use the new instrumentation to make transpiration, leaf area, and photosynthetic measurements on a number of different plants grown under a variety of different environmental conditions in both the laboratory and field. In each experiment the instrumentation will provide a means by which students can: (1) formulate and test hypotheses related to important physiological and ecological concepts; (2) gain hands-on experience with state-of-the-art equipment; (3) conduct experimentation which reinforces important physiological and ecological principles; (4) examine the proper methods of experimental design; (5) gain first-hand experience in the collection, analysis, and interpretation of scientific data; and (6) report on the experimentation in a scientific journal format.
