Episode 169: The Visual Language of GMOs

Fruits and vegetables have changed a lot since the onset of agriculture 10,000 years ago, as generation after generation of farmers artificially bred crops to select for more desirable traits like size and taste. Today on _ We Dig Plants _, Alice and Carmen are visualizing and delving into the vast world of plant genetics and breeding with James Kennedy, on the line from Australia.  A VCE Chemistry teacher at Haileybury, one of Australia’s largest and leading independent schools, he has 5 years teaching and tutoring experience in Cambridge, Melbourne and Beijing, plus he is a progressive informative graphic artist.  Realizing that scientific topics like evolution can be hard for anyone to digest, he has created some terrific infographics to show just how drastic evolution has been. One of of James’ original posters, for instance, shows how corn has changed in the last 9,000 years — from a wild grass in the early Americas known as teosinte to the plump ears of corn we know today.  Tune in for this fascinating show and check out James’ work here!

“As a science teacher, I would be expected to be on the pro-GM side… as a human being, I know that I have this slight preference for natural stuff too.  I can’t pick a side.” [19:00]
–James Kennedy on We Dig Plants