www.czu.cz ; www.raupp.info

To the chagrin of governments on both sides of the U.S.?Canada border, the
Chinese have developed a new technology that would allow corn and wheat to
be planted in regions never before suitable for crop production, February
2005 by Craig T. Neises.

Seen in some corners as a natural progression over the genetic
modification of crops, the plan to grow food that has been altered at the
molecular level in a fashion that also would permit scientists to change the
taste and even the health benefits of those foods, is seen in others as
cause for alarm.

While Asian countries hailed the move by China to put molecularly modified
crops into production, the U.S., Canada and the European Union ? along with
several environmental groups ? oppose use of the technology.

In response to a complaint from the two North American agricultural
powerhouses, the World Trade Organization is working on plans to settle the
dispute.

None of the above has actually happened, of course. Except on paper.

Set more than 40 years in the future, this trumped up international dispute
over the development of molecular modification technology was strictly an
academic exercise presented Wednesday to teams of students from six area
school districts who converged on the Great River Area Education Agency
offices in Burlington for the regional Future Problem Solving Bowl.

Working in teams or singly, students spent two hours trying to tackle the
dispute as though it were real and they had truly been called upon to help
find a solution.

"Do you feel like somebody unzipped your brain and poured everything out?"
AEA 16 enrichment coordinator Kathy Mainz asked the morning session students
after their brainstorming was done.

Students from Burlington, West Burlington, Danville, New London, Central Lee
and Aquinas in Fort Madison participated in the event, which was promoted
more heavily across the region prior to this school year. For several years,
Central Lee, which fielded enough teams and individual problem solvers to
take up the entire afternoon session, was the only area school taking part
in the international program.

Sue Weinbeck, talented and gifted program teacher at Sunnyside Elementary
School in Burlington, said the school was a pilot site for Problem Solvers
in the Burlington district this year. She said participation may expand to
other buildings next year.

"The kids really had a good experience," and were "enthusiastic," about
competing, Weinbeck said.

Competing in three divisions, students in grades four through 12 explore
challenges and offer solutions to complex problems like dealing with the
latest fads, financial security issues, amateur sports, the Internet and
genetic engineering.

The problem solvers generally come from the talented and gifted and honors
programs at their schools.

"These are the best and brightest in southeast Iowa," Mainz said.

The West Burlington Elementary School team of fifth?grader Emily Siefken and
sixth?graders Coleman Reed, Kaylyn Vedder and Scot Perkins, focused their
problem?solving on the basis of what ought to be done to enable the modified
Chinese grain onto the world market.

In practice sessions prior to Wednesday's bowl, Vedder said their team had
gotten good marks for depth of thought and complexity in their ideas.

"We'd rather have a few good ideas than a lot of really bad ones," Reed
said.

Not just a matter of wild ideas (though there is some of that), students are
to weigh issues such as cost, safety and ethics in offering solutions to
problems.

Their final solution, Vedder said, was to recommend that the crops be tested
extensively to ensure they were not harmful to people, and to permit their
production only after determining the crops' safety ? not only to consumers,
but also to the environment.

Members of the team said they see the development of such crops as just a
matter of time.

"We'll probably be older people by then," Vedder said, suggesting that by
the time she and her teammates are in their 60s or 70s, they could well be
eating molecularly modified foods.

Not all the ideas were entirely serious. On her team, West Burlington
eighth?grader Jennifer Chou said, one area of concern that weighed against
allowing the Chinese to go ahead with production of the modified corn was
that doing so might affect the corn oil produced from it, which might impact
artists by causing corn?based paints "to go chunky."

A team from New London proposed sterilizing the food produced from the
altered grain in some way, while a team from Burlington's Sunnyside
Elementary proposed resolving the issue by placing labels on food products
containing altered grains so consumers could tell the difference and choose
whether to buy them or natural products.

Brainstormed solutions from regional problem solvers bowls around Iowa will
be scored, and the top scorers will be invited to a state?level bowl to be
held in Ames in April. Winners there go on to the nationals, scheduled for
June in Kentucky.

Students will learn by the first week of March whether their solutions
earned them advancement to state.

[www.thehawkeye.com]

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