Hands-on learning with 3D-printed flower models

Sustaining a broad diversity of plants is key for a sustainable future. For instance, providing a variety of flowering plants in urban and agricultural landscapes mitigates the current decline of pollinators and biodiversity in general. Therefore, educating about the diversity of flowering plants has high current relevance for biology and environmental education. Unfortunately, students have little knowledge about plant diversity and find botanical topics often uninteresting. Therefore, this paper presents and discusses an engaging teaching approach, where students engage in a role-play with 3D-printed flower models to learn how the morphology of plants affects different insect pollinator groups. To gain insights into students' experiences with the flower models, guided interviews were conducted one week after this role-play. The interview results show that the students were not only motivated to engage in the role-play, but also gained content knowledge on how the diversity of flowers affects insect pollinators. Hence, the approach highlights how 3D printing can contribute to design teaching approaches that engage students in hands-on activities in order to foster their understanding of flower diversity.