{ "$schema": "https://pointcast.xyz/for-agents", "code": "UES-207", "slug": "plant-portraits", "title": "Plant Portraits: Form, Lineage & Cultural Memory", "status": "active", "frame": "Join botanical looking, introductory lineage study, cultural history, image making, and typography without reducing a living plant to decoration or commodity.", "outcome": "A sourced four-page illustrated plant portrait plus one private lineage panel, with optional contribution to a shared visual lineage wall.", "path": "/ues/plant-portraits", "jsonPath": "/ues/plant-portraits.json", "weeklyCommitment": { "selfGuidedStudioMinutes": 75, "fieldworkMinutes": { "minimum": 60, "maximum": 90 }, "reflectionMinutes": 20, "total": "About 2.5–3 hours per module" }, "access": [ "Every instruction is readable on the public course page; audio or video references require a transcript or equivalent text path.", "Every required prompt, scenario, rubric, and checklist is written on this course page; named sources are optional references, not missing course materials.", "Low-bandwidth, print-friendly syllabus with no paid platform or subscription required.", "No live attendance, camera, account, wallet, or public posting is required.", "Progress stays in this browser unless the learner chooses to download a private completion receipt.", "A houseplant, grocery specimen, learner-owned image, or freely viewable public-herbarium record replaces outdoor access; no separate course asset is required." ], "materials": [ "Sketchbook, phone camera, or accessible descriptive-notes method", "One legal, safely observable plant or public herbarium record", "Basic image and layout tool", "No plant purchase, consumption, or cultivation activity required" ], "instructorProfile": "A botanical artist or naturalist able to teach close looking and cultural context, joined by a botanist, geneticist, cultural historian, or experienced legal grower as guest faculty.", "soloPath": "Use a houseplant, grocery specimen, legal public garden, or online herbarium. Observation, sourcing, illustration, and lineage work can all be completed privately.", "assignments": [ { "title": "Non-destructive plant observation", "dueWeek": 2, "brief": "Study one safely and legally observable plant through form, change, uncertainty, and at least two modes of description." }, { "title": "Lineage diagram", "dueWeek": 4, "brief": "Make a careful visual diagram distinguishing documented lineage, taxonomic relationship, cultural naming, and unresolved claims." }, { "title": "Illustrated plant portrait", "dueWeek": 6, "brief": "Complete a private-by-default four-page portrait joining form, lineage, cultural memory, sources, credits, and meaningful image description. Publication is optional." } ], "weeks": [ { "week": 1, "title": "Close Looking and Uncertain Naming", "question": "What can we honestly say about a plant before attaching a confident name?", "sourceShelf": [ "On-page observation fields: silhouette, scale, node, vein, edge, surface, branching, color, seasonal state, change, proposed name, and confidence", "Botanical illustration and herbarium-sheet examples", "Citizen-science identification and uncertainty labels" ], "studio": "Observe silhouette, node, vein, surface, rhythm, color, scale, and change without rushing to identification.", "fieldTask": "Study one legal plant through image, drawing, sound, touch-safe description, or written visual description.", "publicReceipt": "A first plant plate separating observed features from proposed names." }, { "week": 2, "title": "Anatomy, Architecture, Season", "question": "How does plant form record growth, environment, and time?", "sourceShelf": [ "Introductory plant morphology diagrams", "Seasonal growth and phenology observation guides", "Architectural drawing and visual-analysis references" ], "studio": "Read roots, stems, nodes, leaves, flowers, fruit, branching, and seasonal state as a living structure.", "fieldTask": "Make three scaled studies of the plant at whole, branch, and detail levels.", "publicReceipt": "An annotated morphology sheet with accessible description." }, { "week": 3, "title": "Reproduction, Lineage, Genetics", "question": "What is inherited, selected, cloned, crossed, named, marketed, or merely claimed?", "sourceShelf": [ "Introductory inheritance, variation, and reproduction concepts", "Cultivar, variety, hybrid, clone, landrace, and strain terminology", "On-page claim labels: observed feature, taxonomic relationship, documented breeding, commercial name, cultural name, and unresolved lineage claim" ], "studio": "Distinguish taxonomic relationship, documented breeding, commercial naming, cultural lineage, and uncertainty.", "fieldTask": "Trace one plant name through three sources and mark agreement, conflict, missing evidence, and marketing language.", "publicReceipt": "A draft lineage diagram with confidence labels and citations." }, { "week": 4, "title": "People, Symbols, Trade, Law", "question": "Whose labor, knowledge, ritual, restrictions, and stories travel with this plant?", "sourceShelf": [ "Ethnobotanical and cultural-history source prompts", "Trade, naming, appropriation, prohibition, and stewardship case studies", "On-page boundary check: verify current local law through an official public source, state date and jurisdiction, avoid medical claims, protect sensitive knowledge, and mark what the portrait intentionally omits" ], "studio": "Place the plant inside human systems without making cultural or medical claims the sources cannot support.", "fieldTask": "Add one sourced cultural-memory panel and one explicit boundary or omission to the portrait.", "publicReceipt": "A private-by-default lineage panel with scientific, commercial, and cultural claims visibly distinguished; adding it to a shared wall is optional." }, { "week": 5, "title": "Translate Knowledge into Image and Type", "question": "What visual form honors both beauty and evidence?", "sourceShelf": [ "Botanical plate, field-guide, poster, seed-catalog, and protest-image examples", "On-page credit line: creator, title or description, date, source location, rights or permission, crop or edit, and access description", "Image provenance and meaningful alt-text guidance" ], "studio": "Combine observation, diagram, archive, text, color, and type into a coherent four-page portrait.", "fieldTask": "Make the complete portrait draft, then answer four checks: are observed features separate from names, are cultural claims attributed, can every claim be traced, and does text carry the image’s meaning? Correct one failure in each dimension. Optional critique may supplement it.", "publicReceipt": "A review ledger showing one self-checked correction in each of the four dimensions." }, { "week": 6, "title": "Open the Plant Portraits", "question": "How can the exhibition remain beautiful, careful, correctable, and alive?", "sourceShelf": [ "Collective botanical exhibition formats", "Correction, update, and seasonal-revisit patterns", "Use the handoff-package fields in the solo toolkit; publication, wallet use, and minting remain separate optional decisions" ], "studio": "Sequence the personal lineage panel and portrait, then run the final source-and-boundary self-audit. Joining a shared wall or public reading is optional.", "fieldTask": "Finish the portrait, source list, credits, access assets, and one future seasonal observation prompt.", "publicReceipt": "A private-by-default plant portrait and lineage panel with a correction note and next-observation date; publishing is optional." } ], "archiveWorkNumber": "005", "archiveCategory": "BOTANY + LINEAGE", "connectsFrom": [ "UES-103", "UES-104", "UES-105" ], "budgetUsd": 3600, "addedProductionNeed": "Botanical guest faculty and accessible observation kits.", "boundary": "Legal specimens and public information only. Cannabis examples remain 21+, educational, and non-medical, with no consumption or unlawful cultivation instruction.", "human": "https://pointcast.xyz/ues/plant-portraits", "catalog": "https://pointcast.xyz/ues", "fundingProgram": "https://pointcast.xyz/university-of-el-segundo", "participation": { "status": "active", "deliveryMode": "self-paced", "start": "anytime", "durationModules": 6, "learnerPriceUsd": 0, "requirements": { "account": false, "application": false, "deadlines": false, "liveAttendance": false, "wallet": false } }, "progressPolicy": { "storage": "local-browser-only", "syncsToServer": false, "identityStored": false, "learnerArtifactsStored": false, "note": "Only completion choices and timestamps are saved in this browser. The learner may reset them or download a private receipt." }, "optionalSupportedCohort": { "availableWhenFunded": true, "requiredForAccessOrCompletion": false, "note": "A scheduled cohort may add human review and facilitation, but it never gates the independent path." }, "completionReceipt": { "kind": "self-attested", "privateByDefault": true, "walletRequired": false, "onChain": false, "disclaimer": "The receipt is not academic credit, accreditation, verified identity, an on-chain credential, or a financial credential." }, "transactionPolicy": "Course browsing and participation are wallet-free. Tezos support is optional and requires separate explicit Mainnet review." }