A N exciting and important plant tissue culture technique is the culturing of shoot tips for propagation. Students enjoy watching them grow and experimenting with the factors that make them multiply. They are used for rapid asexual propagation of many economically important plants (Rice 1992). In addition, shoot tip cultures are being considered for production of metabolites in culture (Heble 1985). Shoot tip cultures are analogous to small cuttings (Steward 1983). They consist of the apical meristem and one or more primordial leaves (Schaeffer 1990). We use pea seeds (Pisum sativum L. cv Little Marvel) to demonstrate this technique. They are disinfected and germinated five to seven days before the exercise and thus do not require long-term care. In addition, they are easy to dissect, allowing preparation of as many disinfected shoot tips as needed for your experimental design. This exercise is used as a follow-up activity to a lecture presentation exploring the basic methodology and theory of shoot tip