biology

Hanna Resvoll-Holmsen

Hanna Resvoll-Holmsen is a biology topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Hanna Resvoll-Holmsen rather than just read about it. In short: Hanna Marie Resvoll-Holmsen (née Resvoll) (11 September 1873 in Vaage Municipality, Oppland – 13 March 1943 in Oslo) was a Norwegian botanist – a female pioneer in Norwegian natural history education and nature conservation together with her sister, Thekla Resvoll. Life Hanna Resvoll-Holmsen suffered much from illness in her childhood and school attendance after her 12th year was sporadic.

Key takeaways

Hanna Resvoll-Holmsen belongs to biology; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Hanna Resvoll-Holmsen to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Hanna Resvoll-Holmsen from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Hanna Marie Resvoll-Holmsen (née Resvoll) (11 September 1873 in Vaage Municipality, Oppland – 13 March 1943 in Oslo) was a Norwegian botanist – a female pioneer in Norwegian natural history education and nature conservation together with her sister, Thekla Resvoll.

Life Hanna Resvoll-Holmsen suffered much from illness in her childhood and school attendance after her 12th year was sporadic. She took a high school exam in 1902, at which time she had also an unhappy marriage behind her. She studied natural history at the Royal Frederik's University in Kristiania and graduated in botany in 1910. From 1921, she was docent in plant geography at the same university, a position she held until her retirement in 1938. Hanna Resvoll-Holmsen participated as a botanist in the Svalbard expedition in 1907 led by the oceanographer Prince Albert. The next year she went to Svalbard alone mainly to take photographs, partly in colour. These photographs constitute a unique early documentation of Svalbard’s nature. Her botanical observations were first published as Observations botaniques in Monaco, later in Norwegian as Svalbards Flora (1927) – the first flora of this archipelago. Using Christen C. Raunkiær’s quantitative methods, she made a large vegetation survey of Norwegian alpine vegetation, published as Om Fjeldvegetationen i det Østenfjeldske Norge (On the mountain vegetation in Norway east of the Scandes; 1920). She was particularly interested in the subalpine birch forests. She published an essay Om betydningen av det uensartede i våre skoger (On the significance of heterogeneity in forests), which made plead for the conservation of natural mountain forest and criticized its replacement by spruce plantations. This pamphlet caused much animosity against her among foresters. Together with the geologist Adolf Hoel, she was behind the first designation of a conservation area in Svalbard. She was a strong advocate for nature conservation in the Norwegian mountains. She is known in Norwegian conservation circles as the country's first green stocking. Resvoll-Holmsen was first married to Hans Dieset (divorced 1901), then from 1909 to state geologist Gunnar Holmsen (1880–1976), brother of her sister's husband. The buttercup species Ranunculus resvoll-holmseniae (Ranunculaceae) has been named to her honour.

Photographs

Selected scientific works

Les observations botaniques de la campagne scientifique de S.A.S. le Prince Albert 1er de Monaco. La misión Isachsen au Spitzberg 1907. Monaco, 1910. Om Fjeldvegetationen i det Østenfjeldske Norge. Arkiv for matematik og naturvidenskap 1920/No. 2. Svalbards Flora - med en del om dens plantevekst i nutid og fortid. 56 pp. 1927. Om betydningen av det uensartede i våre skoger. Tidsskrift for Skogbruk 1932, 40: 270-275.

Sources

Obituary by Christophersen, E. in Blyttia 1: 100-102 (1943). Eckblad, F.-E. (1991) Thekla Resvoll og Hanna Resvoll-Holmsen, to glemte? Pionerer i norsk botanikk. Blyttia 49: 3-10. Biography by Bredo Berntsen & Inger Nordal in Norsk biografisk leksikon, Oslo: Kunnskapsforlaget (1999–2005) Berntsen, Bredo (2006) En grønnstrømpe og hennes samtid: Hanna Resvoll-Holmsen: botaniker, Svalbard-forsker, fjellelsker, fotograf og naturvernpioner. ISBN 82-8030-008-2

External links Norwegian biography with photos Norwegian article with photos

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Hanna Resvoll-Holmsen

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Hanna Resvoll-Holmsen claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In biology, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Hanna Resvoll-Holmsen before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Hanna Resvoll-Holmsen ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Hanna Resvoll-Holmsen

In research: Hanna Resvoll-Holmsen appears in biology research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Hanna Resvoll-Holmsen in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Hanna Resvoll-Holmsen is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1873 births, 1943 deaths, 20th-century Norwegian botanists, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Hanna Resvoll-Holmsen outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Hanna Resvoll-Holmsen in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Hanna Resvoll-Holmsen means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Hanna Resvoll-Holmsen out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Hanna Resvoll-Holmsen in simple terms?

Why does Hanna Resvoll-Holmsen matter?

Because it connects several biology ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Hanna Resvoll-Holmsen?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Hanna Resvoll-Holmsen.