Plants UK is aimed at furthering the education of pupils in National Curriculum Science, Life Processes and Living Things Levels 3 to 7 and in Information Technology.
The core of the program is a system for identifying common plants that are likely to be found in the locality of British schools, including schoolgrounds, parks and waste spaces.
Pupils identify a plant by answering questions about the observable features. A flexible matching system is used which recognises that variations occur in nature, that some criteria are less reliable than others, and that it is not always possible to answer all questions. Matches are presented in decreasing order of closeness to the answers given. The identification forms may also be used for selecting plants that simply conform to specific characteristics, for example, one may view all wildflowers with oval leaves.
There are three selectable databases:
Every species in the databases is presented individually as a full colour plate of original artwork, together with basic details about the appearance, habitat and characteristics of the plant. A text description is available from a button on the form. Every species in the databases may also be accessed directly from textual and graphical browsers. The order of presentation, whether by flower colour, height or other characteristic, is user variable.
Additional material is available, some on a context sensitive basis, on general topics related to plants such as dispersal of seeds. The program also includes interactive exercises on important key stage topics such as making keys or photosynthesis.