ELIZABETH LEARNS WHY SHE HAS BLUE EYES

FACT: SCIENTISTS ARE DEVELOPING NEW KINDS OF CORN WITH TRADITIONAL GENETICS AND WITH BIOTECHNOLOGY

LESSON 1: Rate that Trait (Math)*
LESSON 2: Genes-R-Us (Science)*
LESSON 3: Wonder Corn (Multidisciplinary)*
LESSON 4: Farm or Pharmacy? (Science, Social Studies, Current Events) Jr. & Sr. High Students

* All Lesson Plans are adaptable for ALL ages!

ELIZABETH LEARNS WHY SHE HAS BLUE EYES

The day Elizabeth turned 16 she took a hard look at herself in the mirror. "It'll do," she thought, and smiled.

Her eyes were very blue, like her mom's, unless she was wearing her green contacts. Everyone said she looked like her mom. But her hair was thicker, and she was taller. Her teeth were straighter too.

"You're a hybrid," her mom always said. "You have the best characteristics from both your dad and me. You have the worst too. But in most respects you're an improved version. That's what hybrids are. Corn breeders choose parents with desirable qualities, then improve them in the next generation."

Elizabeth didn't like being compared to a corn plant. She was tired of her mother using agricultural examples for everything. She was going to become a pediatrician and help save the lives of sick children. Corn was not her thing.

Well, on second thought, maybe she'd become an archaeologist. When she was 13, a group from the university had been studying the site where Native Americans had lived on her farm 1,000 years ago. She'd joined them for a few days, sifting dirt for arrowheads and pieces of pottery, and she'd been there when they'd found a grindstone. Standing there that day, touching that rock, she had seen, heard, and felt the women and children of that ancient village grinding corn between two stones. Grinding corn so they could eat! It still gave her goosebumps.

So, her plan was to become either a doctor or an archeologist, and it had been her plan for two years. That's why, in eighth grade when her teacher said she had to do a science fair project, she'd decided to do it in one of those areas.

The archaeology professor had helped her out. He'd offered to provide her with corn seeds like the kind that had been planted by those native people. He said they were the first farmers in the area, and he'd collected five kinds of the seed they'd used. He thought it would be interesting for Elizabeth to compare old varieties of corn to new ones.

Corn again. It wasn't like she'd wanted to please her mom or anything. It was like she couldn't think of anything better to do.

But she'd done a great experiment, and even won a trip to the state science fair. She'd learned something too. She'd learned the Native Americans had saved corn seed from one year, then planted it the next, and they'd used sticks to plant it, poking it into the soil as evenly as they could. The seed they planted did well in those conditions. Modern seed wasn't saved from year to year, and it was adapted to machines that could plant evenly across a field. It didn't grow when she planted it too deep.

Oh, this was ridiculous. Help! Here she was, sweet sixteen, looking in the mirror, thinking about corn. She needed a psychologist.

No. She needed to pay attention to her thoughts. Maybe she wasn't being fair. Maybe corn was cooler than she thought. She was cool-look at that smile. Her brain was just making some mysterious connection between herself and corn; a connection she didn't understand yet.

She loved it when her mind came up with these things.

Maybe it had to do with becoming a doctor. Her mom had managed to slip in comments about corn being used to make medicine. Man, her mom drove her nuts. She said they'd discovered ways to create corn that was higher in certain nutrients, so whoever ate it would be healthier. And they could make it higher in protein, or in oil, or in starch, depending on what people wanted. They could even make corn into operating gowns for surgeons.

Scientists could do that by studying the genes of the corn plant. If they could identify every single gene in the corn plant, they could use that information to improve corn. Improved corn.

Hey, not bad. They could make it sweeter or taller. More nutritious. Easier to make into plastic, or ethanol. She thought her mom had even talked about corn that could protect itself from insects. Cool-armored corn.

So, what did this have to do with her?

Well, maybe someday she'd be a great doctor who discovered a cure for a terrible disease. Maybe she'd figure out how to insert that cure into a corn plant. So farmers could raise that cure in their fields. So there'd be enough of that cure for everyone. So it wouldn't be too expensive for poor people.

Elizabeth, the great, famous doctor who saved the world using corn. Yes. She could see her name in the headlines, imagine her speech as she accepted the Nobel Prize. She could feel the gratitude of generations to come. Yes, this could be it. It was a sign!

Maybe she could get kids to take their vitamins by hiding them in corn. Hey, what if it was purple corn? That was it! If she, the greatest doctor of all time, could figure out a way to put kids vitamins in corn that was so purple they wanted it, really wanted it, she could probably make a million dollars.

Well, she'd save the world at the same time.

She wondered if she should try to patent the idea before someone else thought of it. Maybe there actually was some potential in this corn genetics stuff. Potential for her. Well, for the world too.

She looked at herself again in the mirror. Good eyes. Nice earrings. Neat jeans. Jeans? Designer jeans?

Designer GENES!

Wow! What a mind! It never ceased to amaze her.

Now was that from her mom, or her dad?

Last reviewed May 7, 2004