Talking about plants – comments of primary school groups looking at plant exhibits in a botanical garden

There has been little work done on the early experiences of children looking at plant exhibits in botanical gardens. This project, a parallel study to one carried out in zoos, sought to establish what the groups talked about and whether there were differences in content when adults were present and between single sex and mixed groups. The conversations were collected during primary school visits to the Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew, England, whilst the groups looked at plant specimens. Transcripts of the conversations were analysed using a systemic network. The results show that children talked spontaneously about easily observed features of plants such as colour, shape, and smell. When cued by adults or other children in the group, children attended to less obvious aspects. Pupil-only groups made significantly more statements than other groups, but asked fewer questions and commented more about human use of plants. There were few differences between the conversational content of boys-only, girls-only, and mixed groups; boys made more comments about plant function. Older pupils made significantly more comments focused on the plants.