SNAB BIOLOGY

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   AS SNAB BIOLOGY

   RICHMOND UPON THAMES COLLEGE

   Centre Number: 14619

Student Name:  Leslie Stevens

Report Title: A visit to Kew gardens report

TARGET AUDIENCE: A/S level student that isn’t doing biology as an A/S subject, but takes a keen interest in the biological principles, and is interested in plants.

MAIN BIOLOGY: Conservation of endangered plants

MINOR BIOLOGY: Plants used for drugs

VISIT TO: Kew gardens

WORD COUNT: 1739 word counts not including front page.

Introduction: 

Kew gardens are one of the worlds leading scientific botanical gardens as a research centre has two functions. One of its roles is to catalogue the biodiversity of endangered plants in the rainforest e.g. Madagascar, the 300,000 species of plants it keeps and conserves are kept in suitable conditions to nurture and help regulate endangered populations.

Its other key role is micro propagation this is growing plants and seeds from pieces of tissue in sterile conditions in a laboratory, and performed in a controlled environment, this is one of the methods used by Kew gardens to prevent endangered species becoming extinct.

Ethics:

 Conservation parks are all very useful as they help in the way of sustaining endangered species, plants are one of them without conservation parks deforestation will, destroy the vast biodiversity of rainforest and increase the number of plants that become extinct. So conservation parks take these plants out of the dangerous environment and grow and sustain them in suitable artificial environments. However some people disagree with these methods and believe that conservation is perceived as a response to the pace of change. Plants should be left in their environment to create competition, this competition is what helps plants to adapt and create diversity. Taking these plants into conservation parks it’s eliminating the everyday problems that plants might have to adapt to and in some sense does reduce biodiversity.

 I believe that conservation is a good, without this a lot of endangered species of plants would have died out; conservation also helps humans in the discovery of new uses of plants, e.g. ropes, medicines, drugs, without certain drugs which carry analgesic effects for operations. Kew gardens regulate these endangered species and replant them in the wild again.  

Social: 

Kew gardens is a conservation park which conserves plants and educates adults and children in the process, it contains over 300,000 species of plants, it helps to bring people within the environment of the plants, e.g. palm house.

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The palm house explores the diversity of the rainforests eco system, the conditions are perfect for the plants which grow in these conditions, as they are very humid and hot, using the hygrometer, it displayed humidity levels of 86% and temperatures of 28ºC, the tour guides explain about the uses for some of the plants e.g. the ylang ylang plants oil can be extracted and used as an antidepressant, some of the uses were shown practically like smelling plants and aloe Vera, and how they can be used as cosmetics.

 

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*** This is good overall account of Kew Garden's role in the conservation of endangered plants. Some good images support the account. Some of the information is repeated several times and might be a little more logically organized and clearly explained. Some examples of plants used in the different conservation methods would make it more interesting to read.