Video and Image Analysis Activities for a Plant Physiology Laboratory

植物科学往往是生物学教育中比较被忽视的领域之一。考虑到植物的静止性和生长缓慢，学生们通常不像动物那样熟悉植物，而且通常对植物研究不那么感兴趣。该项目旨在为一门植物生理学课程开发实验室练习，让学生对植物生物学有一些意想不到的和有趣的见解。一旦这些练习在植物生理学课程中得到实施和完善，其中一些练习就可以在入门课程中使用，以激发学生的兴趣。这些练习包括视频和图像捕捉，以分析生长和生理行为的模式。一种方法是录制植物快速运动的录像带，逐帧分析它们，并对观测结果进行量化。同样，缓慢的植物运动可以通过时间推移技术进行分析，这种技术揭示了令人着迷的运动模式，而实时观察很难将其可视化。对于这两种技术，录像带都是通过视频测微仪系统进行分析，该系统允许进行精确的测量以进行分析，或者将视频序列数字化到计算机中，以进行更复杂的图像分析和处理。在一个学期的课程中，可以安排各种各样的学生小组项目，为学生提供计划实验、实施实验、分析结果和向班级做最终报告的机会。

Plant sciences is often one of the more neglected areas in biology education. Students are usually less familiar with plants than animals and often are not as stimulated by plant research, given plants' static nature and slow growth. This project is designed to develop laboratory exercises for a plant physiology course that can give students some unexpected and interesting insights into plant biology. Once the exercises are implemented and refined in the plant physiology course, some of them can be used in introductory courses to stimulate interest there as well. The exercises involve video and image capture to analyze patterns of growth and physiological behavior. One approach makes videotape recordings of rapid plant motions, analyzing them in frame-by-frame sequences and quantifying the observations. Similarly, slow plant motions can be analyzed by time-lapse techniques that reveal fascinating patterns of motion not easily visualized by real-time observation. For both techniques, videotape is analyzed with a video micrometer system that allows precise measurements to be made for analysis, or video sequences are digitized into a computer for more complex image analysis and processing. A variety of student group projects can be accommodated during the course of a semester, providing the students with an opportunity to plan an experiment, carry it out, analyze the results, and make a final presentation to the class.