To accompany feature “Wired and weird: Meet the cyborg plants”

SCIENCE

Before Reading:

1. What do you think of when you hear the word ‘cyborg’? What do you think a cyborg is?       

2. What are some real-world ways in which electrified or computerized plants might be helpful?           

During Reading:

1. What is a cyborg?     

2. What is photosynthesis? How are engineers trying to take advantage of it?

3. What wavelengths of light do chlorophyll pigments absorb?

4. How did a wire get inside the stem  of the rose pictured at the top of the story?

5. Based on the story, in what ways might wired-up plants be useful?

6. What is nanotechnology? How did Michael Strano use it to get molecules through a chloroplast’s wall?

7. What are two different ways that Strano is using nanotechnology to enhance plants?

8. Why are roots a useful thing for scientists to try and recreate in robotic form?

9. Describe some of the ways that research from the Plantoid robot could be used.                      

After Reading:

1. What are some ways that cyborg plants and other plant-inspired technologies might be useful in your life? Put on your thinking cap and come up with two more ways — not mentioned in the story — that might make botanical cyborgs helpful?

2.  Do you think that cyborg plants are a good idea or does adding electronics into living things make you uncomfortable? Explain why you feel the way that you do about the issue.