Aleksandr Ermoshin: "Not Only Apple Trees Have Apple Fruits, but also Pear, Quince, and Rowan Trees"

11:03, May 24, 2022

International Fascination of Plants Day was held at the university [photo report]

For the sixth time, the Institute of Natural Sciences and Mathematics of Ural Federal University hosted International Fascination of Plants Day, an annual event held under the auspices of the European Plant Science Organization (EPSO). The event was attended by more than 60 people - schoolchildren, students, adult citizens and guests of Ekaterinburg - aged from 8 to 60.

"The purpose of the event is to popularize knowledge about plants, to develop love for them. We take trees, grass, flowers for granted, but if you think about it, they play a very important role in our lives. We organized six master-classes, during which guests created compositions from dried flowers, herbarium, examined the organs of leaves and stems in a microscope, planted plants. The youngest ones modeled a cell from plasticine: membrane, chloroplasts, vacuole, nucleus, and so on," said Olga Sinenko, Assistant of the Faculty of Biology and Fundamental Medicine at UrFU.

The university specialists also told and showed how to create flowerbeds, select colors and flowers in landscape design. The guests created a florarium with their own selection of soil, plants, and composition, which they then kept as a memory for themselves. At the end of the day, those who wished wrote a botanical dictation.

"At the end we had a humorous quiz with closed and open questions. For example, what are the organs of movement of unicellular algae called: flagella, twigs, ropes, strings. What fruit was the cause of disputes and wars in ancient mythology more than once? The apple of discord. After the dictation, we checked the results together. At the same time, the guests learned additional botanical information. So, when we got to the apple of discord, I explained that the fruit "apple" is not only an apple, but also a pear, quince and rowan," says Aleksandr Ermoshin, Senior Researcher of Research Laboratory Biotechnology of Components Maintenance and Restoration of Natural and Transformed Biosystems of UrFU.

Reference

Plants provide life on Earth and are the most important basis for human nutrition. Plants make up 80% of our food. Plants produce 98% of the oxygen we breathe. According to the United Nations, plants are constantly threatened by pests and diseases. Every year, they cause up to 40% of the world's food crops to die. As a result, the total loss to agricultural trade is more than $220 billion a year.

The news article was translated by UrFU International Marketing Office
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