Try Yourself!

What is it about?

The paper discusses how plant collecting in Swedish schools was reimagined and promoted as "experimentation" in the 1920s, when collecting was losing its pedagogical attraction. The book series "Try yourself" presented collecting on the same terms as chemical experiments or microscopy. At the same time, it fit into the genre of collecting manuals published for students and botanical amateurs for a century. As a handbook, it promoted independence outside of the classroom, while still relying on the school curriculum. "Try yourself" shows the complex relationships between reading and doing, between school and field, and between pedagogy and pleasure.

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