water relations and fall leaf color

[Jon Monroe]

Plant-eders,

Greetings and Happy New Year.  I hope everyone is having a good start to
the new year and is enjoying the spam-free newsgroup!  Activity on
plant-ed has been rather light in recent months so I urge you to
remember to use it.  Please post your plant-related questions, answers,
ideas, job ads, and/or links to teaching activities you have developed
and wish to share.  If you are new to the group please have a look at
our charter so you know what we are about:
http://www.bio.net/charters/plant-ed.  If you want to encourage a
colleague to subscribe, send this url to them:
http://csm.jmu.edu/biology/monroejd/planted.html.  

Here are two items to get us rolling.

1. Each year in Plant Phys when I teach water relations some students
ask for practice problems and each year I fail to get around to it. 
Does anyone have a set of problems they would be willing to share to get
me started?

2. Last fall I was hiking in the nearby hills during peak leaf color
season and I caught myself staring at red maple leaves that were yellow
and red and peppered with brown hypersensitive spots.  I started
hypothesizing about why they looked as they did and thought it might
make an interesting problem for students (to stare and hypothesize...). 
So I collected a bunch of leaves, took digital photos and placed them on
my course website on a page describing the assignment
http://csm.jmu.edu/biology/courses/bio455_555/acerleaf/acerleaf.html. 
Feel free to look at it, use it if you wish, and give me feedback on it
if you think it can be improved.

Best wishes,

Jon
Plant-ed moderator

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 Jonathan D. Monroe                 Associate Professor 
 Department of Biology, MSC 7801   office: 540-568-6649 
 James Madison University             fax: 540-568-3333 
 Harrisonburg, VA 22807         email: monroejd at jmu.edu 
    http://csm.jmu.edu/biology/monroejd/jmonroe.html 
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