National Agricultural Literacy Curriculum Matrix
Farming, Food, and Heredity
6 - 8
Students will apply their knowledge of heredity as they develop a breeding plan for a scenario in which they inherit a tomato farm that has been suffering from a blight fungus.
For the teacher:
- PowerPoint: Farming, Food, and Heredity
For each student:
- Paper and pencil
- Article: What’s the Difference Between a Strawberry and a Strawberry?
Essential Files (maps, charts, pictures, or documents)
natural selection: the mechanism by which evolution operates saying that individuals who are best adapted to their environment will have a better chance to pass on their genes to their offspring
selective breeding: the intentional crossing of two animals or two plants to produce offspring with a desired characteristic
Background Agricultural Connections
Interest Approach – Engagement
- Pose the following question to students:
- "How does heredity affect agriculture or the food we eat every day?"
- "Think just about apples. Have we always had so many varieties of apples to choose from at the grocery store?"
- "Is there one variety of apple that you like the best and choose over others?" (Teachers could have a variety of apples on display).
- Explain that just like in humans, heredity affects plants and animals. Farmers and scientists work together to use their knowledge of heredity to help provide a safe, nutritious, and plentiful food supply.
- It is said that we first eat with our eyes and nose and if something doesn’t look or smell good we are unlikely to taste it. Explain that people have been selecting the best tasting, highest producing, and hardiest plants for thousands of years. This was mainly accomplished by saving the seeds of plants that produced fruits or vegetables with a trait that people liked. For example, your great grandmother may have saved seeds from her sweetest tasting tomatoes and passed these down to younger generations in the family who continued to plant them and save seeds. Refer to the Farming, Food, and Heredity PowerPoint to discuss the example of Teosinte and modern corn with the class.
- Either print out, or have students go online to read the article, What’s the Difference Between a Strawberry and a Strawberry?
- Introduce to students the tomato farm challenge found in the Farming, Food, and Heredity PowerPoint. Use the PowerPoint slides to explain the scenario and concept mapping assignment: Farmers use genetic breeding to create better tasting and better quality produce. Today, you will need to think like a farmer and use your knowledge of genetics because you have inherited great uncle Hector’s tomato farm and the farm has a problem that you must solve. You go to visit the tomato farm and are told that most of the tomato plants have died after being infected by a fungus. The good news is that there are still a small number of remaining tomato plants that don’t seem to be infected with the fungus. From a breeding standpoint, what could you do to keep next year’s tomato plants from being killed by the fungus?
- Students may work in groups on their concept maps to determine the best approach to take for breeding fungus resistant tomato plants. After students have completed the assignment you can discuss different approaches that each group took and discuss how some plants are naturally more resistant to certain diseases than other plants. Disease resistance is a desirable trait for plant breeders and farmers. In developing resistant varieties of tomatoes, breeders may select and cross pollinate tomato plants that survived being exposed to early blight fungus. The seeds from these plants would then be planted and the new plants would be exposed to the blight fungus once again to see which of the plants inherited the disease resistant traits from their parents. The resistant plants would be selected and the process would be repeated numerous times to develop a variety of tomato that is consistently resistant to early blight fungus.
- Ask students why they think it is important to maintain genetic diversity in a population. How can genetic diversity help when a population of tomato plants is exposed to a new type of disease? A large gene pool usually means that the population will have a better chance of surviving a disturbance in the environment, or a new disease because at least some of the individuals will have inherited a trait that provides them with some resistance to the new disease or an ability to survive new conditions in the environment. Genetic diversity also makes the population less susceptible to inherited disorders which can become a problem with inbreeding.
Concept Elaboration and Evaluation
After conducting these activities, review and summarize the following key concepts:
- Farmers grow and raise the food we eat.
- There are many varieties of most plants. Each variety has its own set of characteristics such as flavor, size, etc.
- Farmers use science principles to select the plants that they choose to grow.
We welcome your feedback! Please take a minute to tell us how to make this lesson better or to give us a few gold stars!
Suggested Companion Resources
- Enhancing Our World Research Activity (Activity)
- Agricultural Research Magazine (Book)
- Bitter/Sweet Cucumber Taste Test (Kit)
- Crop Modification Techniques (Poster, Map, Infographic)
- Eat Happy Project video series (Multimedia)
- Garden Genetics: Teaching With Edible Plants (Teacher Reference)
- 23andMe (Website)
- Genetic Science Learning Center (Website)
- Journey of a Gene (Website)
Agricultural Literacy Outcomes
Science, Technology, Engineering & Math
- Describe how biological processes influence and are leveraged in agricultural production and processing (e.g., photosynthesis, fermentation, cell division, heredity/genetics, nitrogen fixation) (T4.6-8.b)
Education Content Standards
Biotechnology Systems Career Pathway
BS.03.04Apply biotechnology principles, techniques and processes to enhance plant and animal care and production (e.g., selective breeding, pharmaceuticals, biodiversity, etc.).
MS-LS1 From Molecules to Organisms: Structures and Processes
MS-LS1-4Use argument based on empirical evidence and scientific reasoning to support an explanation for how characteristic animal behaviors and specialized plant structures affect the probability of successful reproduction of animals and plants, respectively.
MS-LS1-5Construct a scientific explanation based on evidence for how environmental and genetic factors influence the growth of organisms.
MS-LS3 Heredity: Inheritance and Variations of Traits
MS-LS3-2Develop and use a model to describe why asexual reproduction results in offspring with identical genetic information and sexual reproduction results in offspring with genetic variation.
MS-LS4 Biological Evolution: Unity and Diversity
MS-LS4-5Gather and synthesize information about technologies that have changed the way humans influence the inheritance of desired traits in organisms.
Common Core Connections
Reading: Anchor Standards
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.2Determine central ideas or themes of a text and analyze their development; summarize the key supporting details and ideas.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.4Interpret words and phrases as they are used in a text, including determining technical, connotative, and figurative meanings, and analyze how specific word choices shape meaning or tone.
Speaking and Listening: Anchor Standards
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.SL.1Prepare for and participate effectively in a range of conversations and collaborations with diverse partners, building on others’ ideas and expressing their own clearly and persuasively.
Language: Anchor Standards
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.L.4Determine or clarify the meaning of unknown and multiple-meaning words and phrases by using context clues, analyzing meaningful word parts, and consulting general and specialized reference materials, as appropriate.