Dr. Stepanova shares her presentation “The ins and outs of heirlooms, hybrids, & GMOs” as an outreach resource
By Anna N. Stepanova, North Carolina State University
Files provided: Powerpoint presentation (18 Mb) and PDF (8.5 Mb).
Plant scientists, especially those that are parents with young kids, are often asked to come to talk to K-12 children about plants. Since 2010, my lab has been running a Plants4Kids educational program for elementary school children. You can often find us at the local science museum and in school classrooms doing a demo with hands-on activities and plant-themed games, where kids plant pea seeds in yogurt cups (that they then bring home to watch plants sprout and grow), or figure out what part of a plant (root, leaf, stem, etc.) specific vegetables came from, or match the seeds with the crop plant that produced them, or play a trivia game to answer plant-focused questions. We get more invitations to speak at science-focused events at schools and museums than we could possibly fit into our busy work schedules, but we did make some of the hands-on experimental modules we developed available online.
Recently, I was invited to talk to high school students in a science club about GMOs and genome editing. I teach molecular genetics to graduate students, but did not think that those lectures would be appropriate for a high school-level audience. So, I needed to come up with something simpler, yet informative, educational and engaging, for these teens. I spent a couple of weekends putting together an interactive lecture that I called "The ins and outs of heirlooms, hybrids, and GMOs". My presentation was well received, students were actively engaged, taking guesses, asking good questions, and making comments. I decided that the slidedeck that I put together can help out other plant scientists wanting to talk to the general public about traditional crop breeding and modern biotechnologies in agriculture. I am sharing with you this slide deck so you too can get involved with community outreach without having to invest time into preparing the slides.
Discussion questions in the presentation that present an opportunity for the audience to reflect and guess the answers before they are revealed
What percentage of many common fruits & vegetables in the picture are: genetically modified; mutant; heirlooms; products of breeding; hybrids
If you were a crop farmer or plant breeder, what traits would you select for?
Pictures of wild & domestic versions of 9 common fruits & vegetables to guess what they are.
When did humans first domesticate animals?
When did humans first start farming?
What innovations brought about higher yield?
What GMO crops are commercially available in the US?
Am I exposed to GMOs? Are GMOs safe? Can I buy seeds of GMO plants to grow in my garden?
Learning check-in: What percentage of many common fruits & vegetables in the picture are: genetically modified; mutant; heirlooms; products of breeding; hybrids
