click here to go to the online Evaluation page
* brazilsoy gmo's GMO's in Brazil Hannah
* Canola in Canada Ai
* cleantobacco gmo crops Hasani
* DrChinsGeneticallyModifiedAmericanCornWebsiteAndBlog gmo Sean
* Egyptian soybeans gmo Jazzmine
* Featherless GMO Chickens Anna
* GM Maize in South Africa Allison
* GMO Corn In Mexico Marielle
* GMO cotton china Shirley
* GMO Cotton for Australia Savannah
* GMO soybeans in the USA Geoffrey
* GMO sugar cane in Brazil crops, this site will tell you about GMO's in Brazil and how it affects their
lives. Jonathan
* GMO-tomatoes gmo, Information on GM TOMATOES in USA Tim
* India: Brinjal gmo Laura
Sugar cane in Cuba Cathy
Ms Getz would like you to redo them, or at least fix some of their problems.
Consequently, we will be using April 3 to do the website evaluations. If you have not added a page to your website on your GMO lab by April 3, then you should also use classtime on April 3 to add that page.
From the redo instructions:
These are the main things that were missing in most people’s websites that need to be included or changed:
1. Your factoids need to be linked to an electronic source that exists on the Internet. You can’t just say that GMOs caused 600% of the population to become impoverished without citing the source where you found that information. If it is true, then it is valid info. If it is hearsay, then you need to evaluate whether or not the information can be trusted. Either way, you need to provide a link to that information so that the reader of your website can decide if it is a bunch of garbage or valid information.
2. All of your citations need to be electronic. Ms Getz is not going to look things up on a paper source nor are others who visit your website.
3. All of your links need to be live. Having a web address on the page is not a link. It is gibberish.
4. You need to pick ONE GMO crop that is farmed in one specific country. For this crop you need to tell:
a. How the crop becomes a GMO crop. Is a gene introduced? If so, what is it? Where did it come from?
b. What is different about the crop than the “normal” one that is farmed? Which biological molecules are different? How are they different?
c. Which company manufacturers this crop? Tell something about the company- who are they, where do they exist, what are some other crops they produce?
d. How does the local ecosystem change because the crop is grown there? You need to provide evidence of this info- not just some random hearsay.
e. What is the country that uses the GMO crop? Why are they using a GMO crop?
5. Some of you claim that the crop is going to widen the poverty / wealthy gap. The ones who can afford the seeds will, and those who can’t won’t. This is not true. You need to do your research thoroughly. For example, Golden Rice was engineered specifically to provide nutrition to impoverished countries that can not easily get vitamin A in their diet. The seed is practically given away to these countries.
6. Part of this assignment is for you to learn how to evaluate websites. Think about the information you are quoting or linking to. Do you really think researchers are going to put peanut genes in anything? Everybody knows the peanut allergy can be lethal so why would they even bother putting in a gene they know is lethal. One reason you are doing this assignment is to demonstrate that you can think for yourself. You should think about the pro- arguments and the anti-arguments and reason through how valid the arguments are. Some of the anti-arguments are valid. You need to think, though, to decide which ones are hype and which ones are scientifically valid.
7. Speaking of scientifically valid, you should continue to research controversial topics until you have found more than two sources on it. The Bt toxin has a tremendous history. To cite information from year 2000 is irresponsible. In the last 9 years so much research has been done on the Bt toxin and other GMO crops that if you are relying on research that was not even found to be totally true in year 2000, you are not doing valid research. You are just propagating the hype and invalid “truths.”
8. You need to figure out how to put a link to your pages in your navigation spot in the left hand column of the website.
9. You should have at least 5 different pages. For example, your pages could be:
a. What are GMO crops? Why are they needed in general? What are the various things that can be done to make a crop genetically engineered?
b. What are the pros and cons of having GMO crops in general? What is being done to help prevent the con arguments from becoming reality. Yes, some of the anti-GMO arguments are valid, but in some cases, only if cultural practices are not followed. What are some of the cultural practices being done to prevent the GMO crop from going out of control or from creating herbicide-resistant insects?
c. What is the exact crop you are researching? Who manufacturers the crop? Why are people spending money developing this crop? Why does the country that is farming the crop actually farming the crop? Why are they wasting their time and money on farming GMO crops?
d. Biological molecules- what are the biological molecules involved with this GMO crop? How are the biological molecules of the GMO crop different from the non-GMO crop? Be as detailed as possible.
e. External links- you should have at least 10 links to various websites that are about GMO issues. These could be to the US gov’t info pages, to company info pages, to anti-GMO organizations, to pro-GMO organizations. Each link should have 2-3 sentences explaining why I would want to go to that website. What will I find out when I go there?
10. A bibliography does not count as a page. This is not a paper assignment. It is a website. Citations are done right there on the website page. They are not done on some random page someplace else. Ms Getz now realizes this is more of a paradigm shift than she realized at first. Many of you are still stuck in the linear way of doing research papers that have a beginning, a middle, and an end. Websites are dynamic and have information available simultaneously on various pages. You want to provide details that relate to a page on that page. You want to have links that show where your information came from on the same page as the information. Using paper sources are not adequate for websites. You want to provide supporting material that is easy to locate on the Internet and is linked to your pages.
11. Be careful with your formatting. Do not put in returns at the end of a line. Only hit return when you want to end a paragraph.
12. Include pictures. People like looking at pictures.
13. Make sure your GMO crop is actually being grown in 2009 in the country you chose.
Some links you may want to consider using or at least reading the information there:
Why US and EU GMO policies differ
BIO- Biotechnology Industry Organization. One of the major biotech professional groups in the US
BIO's food and agriculture page