New Milford—Dr. Issa Salame spoke about genetically-modified organisms (GMO’s) to students at the Solomon Shechter Day School of Bergen County (SSDS) on October 11 as part of their yearlong initiative, Going Green Starts With Me.

A discussion about GMO’s does not intuitively fit in with the idea of going green, but as the fifth to eighth grade students learned, the production of genetically modified food, something which represents 80 percent of what’s in supermarkets, has very real impacts on the environment. “Science plays an important role in the quest to feed everyone,” Daniel Jaye, director of academic affairs, said in his introduction.

The school’s hallways had teaser posters hinting at the connection between fish and tomatoes in the days leading up to the lecture. As Salame, an environmental chemist at City College explained, the gene in fish that enables them to resist cold temperatures was spliced into tomatoes in 1996 so that the plant could have a longer growing season.  “GMO foods have a lot of potential, but we have to be careful,” Salame said.

After telling the students that it would be up to them to decide whether GMO’s where good or bad, Salame discussed both the advantages and disadvantages that result from the science. Fish, for instance, can be made larger via gene splicing. The students were in awe after hearing the idea that one of their 4’9” tall classmates could have achieved that height by age 3 with genetic modification.

Advantages of GMO’s include the ability to produce better quality food in greater quantities that are potentially healthier. They can also be used in non-food ways to produce ethanol, an ingredient in gasoline, more efficiently. Modification can lead to conservation of water, energy and land while also leading to cheaper food production.

On the other hand, GMO’s can create allergies and, since their creation, rates of various cancers have increased four to 500 percent. The presence of new genes in a food, specifically genes from shellfish, are a main allergy issue. Genetic modification can also lead to super viruses and the extinction of certain seed varieties.

The idea of genetically modifying animals to make things like “flying horses” was only discussed in the abstract outside of the discussion of transgenic fish. “The goal is to get our students to examine and question the choices they make in their lives,” Leah Silberstein, director of communications, said.

In addition to lectures with experts in the field, students at SSDS are and will be doing activities like constructing their own greenhouse out of recycled materials, researching alongside people at the New Jersey School of Conservation and learning about water filtration. The school tries to look at everything though an integrated lens so in addition to learning about the science of it all, the students will look at what Jewish texts say about caring for the Earth.

“It’s great food for exploration on both sides of the aisle,” Jaye said.

By Aliza Chasan