FERN (Foumdation for Educational Rendezvous with Nature) is conducting A Certificate Course in Botany, covering Identification, Habitats, Ecology & Conservation in Thane. This short duration course (12 weeks) is distributed as 4 lectures (one & half hour each) and one local field visit per week, total being 48 lectures & 12 field visits during the entire course. Thought behind classroom sessions is that one will get to learn, from a subject expert, basic theory and background of what to expect on the field, listen to their experiences and interact with them. FERN has invited more than 27 qualified and experienced faculty to conduct lectures as well as accompany the participants during field visits.

With this field course FERN aims to introduce and yet go beyond the conventional, often covered aspects of Field Botany to bring forth very interesting lesser addressed branches of Botany. 

The course will cover conventional topics in Field Botany like Evolutionary History & Diversity of Plants, Complete Morphology, Nomenclature of plants, Systems of Classification, Keys to Important Families of Flowering Plants, Field Data Collection & Herbarium Techniques, Plant Associations & Interactions, Plant Communities in Different Ecosystems (Grasses, Aquatic Plants, Mangroves along with their adaptations).

Along with these, some concepts in Ecology- Habitats, Endemism & Extinction, An Introduction to Plant Physiology, Anatomy, Biochemistry & Biotechnology as well as other topics which common people may find interesting like Phenology, Plant succession, Orchids, Insectivorous Plants, Tree aesthetics, Engineering in Plants, Herbal Medicine, Plant Breeding will also be covered.

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Duration: 13th March to 30th May 2015 

Lectures: Every Friday & Saturday 6:30 pm to 9:30 pm 

Venue: Saraswati Secondary School, Naupada, Thane 

Field Visits: Every Sunday 7 am to 12 noon 

Fees: Rs. 4000/- per participant. Transportation to and from field visit locations is not covered.

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For detailed Schedule of the course visit: http://www.fern.in/#!schedule/c21hu

Indian Botanists doesnot have any association with FERN except to give online publicity and coverage about the course