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Educational Case Study Activity: Debate Over the GMO Papaya

In this learning activity, high school and undergraduate students get to play roles such as activist, papaya farmer, biotech scientist, USDA regulator, or council member as they debate whether the Hawaii County Council should ban genetically-modified rainbow papaya. The goal of the case study is to engage students in discussion of issues about GMO use in agriculture through exploration of the perspectives on Hawaiian cultural preservation, economic development, food security, biotechnology, public health, environmental sustainability, and more. The lesson plan gives each participant background information about their character, their stance on the issues, talking points, and questions to ask and answer, as well as links to background reading specific to their role. The activity can be adapted for any class size (explained on page 3 of the downloadable PDF). Teachers looking to use this lesson can find a brief background of the rainbow papaya and the Hawaiian economy on pages 4-5. On the page linked above, readers will also find a free 30-minute documentary on the Hawaiian GMO debate. The case study was developed by Pulitzer Prize-winning science and technology journalist Amy Harmon, who has written extensively on public perception of GMO crops. The project is supported by the Alliance for Science, based in the Department of Global Development at Cornell University's College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.
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Date of Scout Publication
August 13th, 2021
Date Of Record Creation
July 23rd, 2021 at 11:53am
Date Of Record Release
July 26th, 2021 at 7:37am
Resource URL Clicks
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