BDC223: Plant Ecophysiology
“My practice as a scientist is atheistic. That is to say, when I set up an experiment I assume that no god, angel or devil is going to interfere with its course; and this assumption has been justified by such success as I have achieved in my professional career. I should therefore be intellectually dishonest if I were not also atheistic in the affairs of the world.”
— J.B.S. Haldane, Faith And Fact
Welcome to Term 4 of BDC223 (Plant Ecophysiology). This page provides the syllabus and teaching policies for the module, and it serves is a starting point for the theory, instruction, and access to the data you’ll use in the module’s Labs.
Please refer to the Faculty AI Policy.
1 Timetable
My part of the BDC223 module runs in the 4th term, from 8 September to 20 October 2025.
| Day | Periods | Location | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Monday | 5th period (11:15–12:00) | A2 | Lecture |
| Monday | 13:30–17:10 | TBA | Lab |
| Tuesday | 1st period (08:30–9:15) | N99 | Lecture |
| Thursday | 1st period (08:30–9:15) | C3 | Lecture |
Below and to the left in the menu, you are provided with links to all your teaching materials. The weekly face-to-face lectures are essential for discussing the work and they give you an opportunity to ask me any questions you may have.
The Labs take place on Mondays during Periods 6-8. Labs are compulsory, and failing to attend will result in a penalty of 20% taken from your mark for the week.
Please ensure that you read through each Lab (accessible in the sidebar) before the start the Labs. You have until the following Monday at 08:00 to complete and submit all the material.
2 Instructor and Lab Assistant
Term 4 of BDC223 is taught by me, Professor AJ Smit. You may find me in Office 4.103 in the BCB Department (4th floor). You’ll receive an introductory email from me, and you are welcome to contact me at that email address with questions or concerns. Please also use the WhatsApp group set up for this module to ask questions and share information.
The Lab Assistant for Term 3 is Ms. Siphe Kumalo. She will be available in the Lab during the Lab periods to assist you with any questions you may have.
3 Syllabus, Overview, and Expectations
Plants and other photo-oxygenic organisms are foundational to most life on Earth. They form part of complex interactions with the non-living and living world, and are severely being impacted by many of the components of global change. In this module, BDC223, we will explore the fundamental concepts, characteristics, and driving forces that shape and maintain plant-based productivity across Earth.
| Wk | Type | Topic | Class/Lab | Exercise Due |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| W1 | L | Introduction | 8 Sep | |
| L | Lecture 1: Planetary Boundaries | 8/9 Sep | ||
| L | Lecture 1: Planetary Boundaries | 11 Sep | ||
| W2 | L | Lecture 2. SA:V | 15 Sep | |
| P1 | Lab 1: SA:V | 15 Sep | 22 Sep | |
| Self | Lecture 3: Earth’s Climate | 16 Sep | ||
| L | Lecture 4: Climate Change (Carbon Cycle) | 16 Sep | ||
| L | Lecture 5: Light | 18 Sep | ||
| W3 | L | Lecture 6: Pigments & Photosynthesis | 22 Sep | |
| P2 | Lab 2: Light & Light Variability | 22 Sep | 29 Sep | |
| L | Lecture 6: Pigments & Photosynthesis | 23 Sep | ||
| L | Lecture 7: Chromatic Adaptation | 25 Sep | ||
| E | Essay due | 26 Sep | ||
| W4 | L | Lecture 7: Chromatic Adaptation | 29 Sep | |
| P3 | Lab 3: Photosynthesis | 29 Sep | 6 Oct | |
| L | Lecture 8: Nutrients | 30 Sep | ||
| T1 | Class Test 1 | 2 Oct | ||
| W5 | L | Lecture 8: Nutrients – Theory | 6 Oct | |
| P4 | Lab 4: Nutrient Uptake | 6 Oct | 13 Oct | |
| Self | Lecture 8: Nutrients – Michaelis-Menten | 7 Oct | ||
| L | Lecture 9: Plant Stress | 9 Oct | ||
| W6 | L | Lecture 10: VOCs | 13 Oct | |
| L | Lecture 11: TBA | 14 Oct | ||
| T2 | Class Test 1 | 16 Oct | ||
| W7 | L | Revision | 20 Oct |
4 Class Tests
There will be two class tests:
- Thursday, 2 October 2025, First period
- Thursday, 16 October 2025, First period
5 Essay
Write a two-thirds to one page essay on:
- “Your relationship with nature.”
The due date is:
- Friday, 26 September 2025, 23:59
Formatting instructions for the essay are as follows:
- Maximum one page (no references!) – everything on page two will be excluded from assessment.
- 10 pt font, Times New Roman.
- Single line spacing.
- Left justified only – no full justification. Ever.
- A single blank line between paragraphs.
- 2.54 cm margins all round.
- No visual embellishments… stay professional.
- See attached example – work from this example as your visual guide.
- No internal section heaidngs, but ensure the title and your name appear in bold.
Please see the example layout format here.
6 Graduate Attributes
The graduate attributes resulting from completion of this modules alignment with the expectations of the workspace across diverse organisations and institutions where graduates typically find employment.
7 Course Resources
All the lecture material for this module is on iKamva. You will find there the following under Course Resources:
- PDF_Reading—Additional reading material is provided and it is essential that you read it. So, learning will occur because you read the papers and understand them. My job is to facilitate your understanding. Yes, reading is an important life skill. It is also important to note that learning can and should happen independently of someone teaching you.
- Slides—The slides I present in my lectures are available for download from iKamva.
- Videos—These are the actual video of me talking. I might record more as we work through the course.
Additionally, the Lecture Transcripts may be found on The Tangled Bank (menu on the left). Of course, you also have my presence during the Lectures.
8 Attendance
8.1 Lectures
Lecture attendance will be encouraged through the administration of random quizzes. If you miss any, penalties will be applied to your CAM.
8.2 Labs
These Labs are hands-on. They can only deliver acceptable outcomes if you attend all Lab sessions. Sometimes an occasional absence cannot be avoided. Still, you need to provide evidence (affidavit, doctor’s note, or death certificate) for why you did not attend to avoid a non-attendance penalty. Please be courteous and notify the tutor or me before any absence. If you work with a partner in class, inform them too. Keep up with the reading assignments while you are away, and we will all work with you to get you back up to speed on what you miss. If you do miss a class, however, the assignments must still be submitted on time (also see Late submission of CA).
Since you may be required to work in collaboration with a peer on tasks and assignments, please keep this person informed at all times in case some emergency makes you unavailable for some time. Someone might depend on your input and contributions—do not leave someone in the lurch so that they cannot complete a task in your absence.
8.3 General Considerations
The schedule is set and will not be changed. Sometimes an occasional absence cannot be avoided. Please be courteous and notify the tutor or me before any absence. If you work with a partner in class, inform them too. Keep up with the reading assignments while you are away, and we will all work with you to get you back up to speed on what you miss. However, if you miss a class, the assignments must still be submitted on time (also see ‘Late submissions’ below).
9 Assessment
The syllabus for Term 3 is comprised of the following mark-carrying components for Continuous Assessment (CA):
- Labs and Essay — [60%] (0.8 + 0.2, respectively)
- Tests and Quizzes — [40%] (0.9 + 0.1, respectively)
The CA and an exam will provide a final mark for the module. The weighting of the CA and the exam is 0.6 and 0.4, respectively.
10 Late Submissions
Late assignments will be penalised 10% per day late. They will not be accepted more than 48 hours late unless evidence such as a doctor’s note, a death certificate or another documented emergency can be provided. If you know a submission will be late, please discuss this and seek prior approval. Class time is allocated to work on assignments, and students are expected to continue working on the projects outside class. Successfully completing (and passing) this module requires that you finish tasks based on what we have covered in the course by the following class period. Work diligently from the onset so that even if something unexpected happens at the last minute, you should already be close to done. This approach also allows rapid feedback to be provided to you, which can only be accomplished by returning assignments quickly and punctually.
11 Support
It’s expected that some tricky aspects of the module will take time to master, and the best way to master problematic material is to practice, practice some more, and then ask questions. Trying for 10 minutes and then giving up is not good enough. I’ll be more sympathetic to your cause if you can demonstrate having tried for a full day before giving up and asking me. When you ask questions about some challenges, this is the way to do it—explain to me your numerous attempts to solve the problem and how these various attempts have failed. I will not help you if you have not tried to help yourself first (maybe with advice from friends). There will be a time in class to do this, typically before we embark on a new topic.
Should you require more time with me, find out when I am ‘free’ and set an appointment by sending me a calendar invitation. I am happy to have a personal meeting with you via Zoom, but I prefer face-to-face in my office.
12 Communication
Ad-hoc communication is encouraged. Subscribe to the BDC223 WhatsApp group to openly discuss module content.
13 Advice for Success
Your success on this course depends very much on you and the effort you put into it. The module has been organised so that the pleasure of learning is on you, mainly by reading scientific publications on the week’s lecture topics. Your TAs and I will help you by providing you with materials and answering questions, and setting a pace, but for this to work you must do the following:
- Complete all the preparation work before class. This includes reading and working through the lecture slides.
- Ask questions. Engage with your peers and me. In a class or away from it. Use the WhatsApp group set up for this module and the comments section on the website. Surround yourself with people who are brighter than you, and make your conversations about ideas, not people and things. If you get a question wrong on an assessment, ask why. If you’re not sure about the Lab assignments, ask. If you hear something on the news that sounds related to what we discussed, raise it as a topic for discussion in class. If the reading is confusing, ask.
- Do all assignments and Labs, attend, and don’t be late. The earlier you start, the better. You should ask yourself how these exercises relate to earlier material and imagine how they might be changed (to make questions for an exam, for example.) It’s not enough to just mechanically plough through the exercises.
- Don’t procrastinate. If something is confusing to you in Week 2, Week 3 will become more confusing, Week 4 even worse, and eventually, you won’t know where to begin asking questions. Don’t end a week with unanswered questions. But if you fall behind and don’t know where to start asking, come to my office, and let me help you identify a good (re)starting point.
Reuse
Citation
@online{smit,_a._j.,
author = {Smit, A. J.,},
title = {BDC223: {Plant} {Ecophysiology}},
url = {http://tangledbank.netlify.app/BDC223/BDC223_index.html},
langid = {en}
}