2026 Colorado OER Conference

Many traditional science textbooks from major publishers are prohibitively expensive and contain more material than many instructors can cover. OERs lower the cost of student participation in science and allow for customization by other educators who want to use them in their own classroom. Botany is one such area of the life sciences with few OERs developed. We aimed to create a new OER (Biology of Plants Coloring Textbook) specific to botany that was customized to the unique block plan structure of Colorado College, with a curriculum covered in 3.5 weeks of concentrated study. This project offered a unique collaboration between a faculty author and student illustrator.  Colorado College promoted the creation of the OER with grants to the professor and the student illustrator, and provided professional networking opportunities. The OER is a hybrid of a condensed textbook, laboratory exercises including slide and living specimen observations and experiments, and interactive worksheets and coloring images featuring 30+ original botanical line drawings. We will discuss our collaborative process developing the project, discuss licensing choices, and showcase our work, focusing on the beautiful illustrations. Our published OER is being utilized by multiple instructors at Colorado College and many other instructors at different institutions have shown interest in it, especially those who teach college-level introductory botany in shorter timeframes like summer or January terms.