Have you ever heard of a botany hero? What if a botany hero or heroine came along to inspire young people to investigate the world around them, stimulating an interest in natural science?

Shanleya is just such a heroine in the story Shanleya's Quest: A Botany Adventure for Kids Ages 9 to 99. The story communicates botany and evolutionary concepts in a metaphorical format, ideal for the way young people process information. Through the story, students can grasp the fundamentals of the origins of life, the process of evolution, the tree of life, and the immense amount of time that has passed along the way.

The story also presents real plant identification skills to enable students to recognize monocots and dicots and to identify eight major families of plants and some of their properties and uses. The companion game is designed to exercise those plant identification skills, anchoring the basic concepts in a way that students may ultimately use them outside the classroom.