The plant kingdom can be learned more successfully if tasks involve direct contact with elements of the plant world and students have the possibility of working cooperatively in small groups within the secondary school classroom. This paper analyses student understanding of the general and floral physiology of angiosperms within a teaching-sequence in which cooperative learning was applied to 74 Spanish secondary school students aged 12-13 years. The influence of group work and the use of plant elements on learning was assessed by comparing two tasks administered individually before and after the sequence. Subsequent application of Fisher's exact test detected statistically significant differences between the two milestones in favour of cooperative learning and the use of plants. We can therefore conclude that this active method for learning the plant kingdom enables students to get physically closer to the subject of the plant kingdom whilst developing their scientific knowledge via group work.