Keep calm and carrot on: how can we breed better carrots?

Suitable for 14-19-year olds (secondary and high schools, and college), this article and accompanying activity sheet can be used in the classroom, STEM clubs and at home.

This resource links to KS4 and KS5 biology.

It can also be used as a careers resource and links to Gatsby Benchmarks:
Gatsby Benchmark 2: Learning from career and labour market information
Gatsby Benchmark 4: Linking curriculum learning to careers

• This teaching resource explains the work of Dr Bill Rolling and Dr Jenyne Loarca, plant geneticists at the USDA Vegetable Crop Research Unit. They are investigating the factors that influence carrot germination and growth.

• This resource also contains an interview with Bill and Jenyne and offers an insight into careers in plant genetics. If your students have questions for Bill and Jenyne, they can send them to them online. All they need to do is to go to the article online (see the Futurum link below), scroll down to the end and type in the question(s). Bill and Jenyne will reply!

• The activity sheet provides ‘talking points’ (based on Bloom’s Taxonomy) to prompt students to reflect on Bill and Jenyne’s research and challenges them to explore how environmental conditions influence seed germination and plant growth.

This resource was first published on Futurum Careers, a free online resource and magazine aimed at encouraging 14-19-year-olds worldwide to pursue careers in science, tech, engineering, maths, medicine (STEM) and social sciences, humanities and the arts for people and the economy (SHAPE).

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