Chris Templeton shows a photo next to a living corpse flower in its "leaf stage" to a third-grade class on their tour through the greenhouse.

The Botany Greenhouse provides research and education services not just to the Department of Biology, but to the whole University and the greater Seattle community. Students and faculty throughout the University pursue inquires at the Greenhouse, which also gives free public educational tours of its diverse collection of plants from around the world.

The most popular educational outreach programs are the K-12 group tours. Last year more than 2,500 students visited the Greenhouse with public, private, and home school groups, primarily from the Seattle metropolitan area.   Students had the opportunity to observe plants that they would have otherwise only read about in books.

In order to keep up with the rising demand for K-12 student tours, the Greenhouse began the Graduate Student Docent Program in 2004.  This program provides 15 talented biology graduate students a small stipend for leading Greenhouse tours.  It was very successful in its first year, giving the graduate students valuable experience in leadership and teaching, while inspiring the K-12 students by example.  Graduate student docents provide excellent role models for what it is like to go to college.

The talented group of student docents are interested in providing tours of the Medicinal Herb Garden as well in future years.

You can enjoy your own tour of the greenhouse and medicinal herb garden April 27th- 29th as part of a campus wide community event: Washington Weekend.