Interactive, illustrated, plant identification keys: an example for the Portuguese flora

Abstract

At the University of Aveiro, a multimedia tool was developed to help the teaching of botany [1], [2]. It includes a Dichotomous Interactive Key (DIK), for 390 taxa of vascular plants occurring at “Ria de Aveiro” lagoon system. This key is linked to two different glossaries, one descriptive, the other illustrated. At the end of the identification process, the student is conducted to a webpage including photographs, descriptions and other relevant information about the taxa. The students considered it “very useful”, and the successful identifications increased in the assessment tests in the two years after the introduction of the DIK. This seem to be an effective tool in the teaching of botany, namely in plant identification at secondary and post-secondary level.