Welcome back to the start of the new year – hope you had a calm and relaxing summer!

Here’s a short Scotland Special newsletter from the Science and Plants for Schools team, which we’re sending out to make sure all our Scottish members hear about our survey, which gives the chance to win a £300 Dinolite microscope. The next SAPS newsletter, in September, will be for all our members, when we’ll be talking about our new programme of grants for resource development.

Ensure SAPS works for you – and win a £300 Dinolite microscope

It is important that we know a little more about you to ensure our Associates scheme delivers something useful, and so that we can report on our impact. We therefore ask you to complete a short (5 mins) survey for us. To say ‘thanks’ we will enter Associates into a free prize draw to win a £300 Dinolite USB microscope.

Biology Workshops

For everyone looking for inspiration for their plant biology teaching, the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh has just made the schools programme for 2011/2012 available on their website. Take a look here: http://bit.ly/q9RHOs

Meanwhile, St Andrews Botanic Garden is offering plant biology education workshops for all age ranges, with topics including taxonomy, photosynthesis and growing plants for S1 to S4, and plant adaptation for Highers. More information is available on their website: http://bit.ly/qBpeui

Forgotten Forests and Rainforest Explorers

2011 is the International Year of Forests, so celebrate it with ‘Forgotten Forests’, a programme of events, films and an exhibition taking place at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, from 19 September onwards.  For those of you who can’t get there in person, the Garden’s created a website, where they’re inviting you to contribute your forest pictures, videos and conversations to help show the diversity of forests, and the issues they face.

Find out more at:  http://elmer.rbge.org.uk/forgottenforests/

Meanwhile, plant scientists out in the Columbian cloud forests blog about their experiences – recording endangered species, finding some of the world’s smallest orchids, and seeing a translucent frog the size of a thumbnail fall out of a tap: http://bit.ly/qfe2wT

Enjoy the new term!

The Administratort, Dan Jenkins, Ginny Page and Elisabeth Burmeister