Nikolai Vavilov

High school (ages 12+)
History & Culture

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Date:

Step 1 · Read the article

Open the article and read it at the level above. Then answer the questions below in your own words.

https://smallwhale.org/articles/nikolai-vavilov

Write what each word means, using the article.

Do not copy the article. Write two things you learned, the way you would explain them to a friend.

Answers below are taken from the article’s stored facts, so they match what the student read.

1. When was Nikolai Vavilov born?November 25, 1887
2. Where was Nikolai Vavilov born?Moscow, Russia
3. What is the scientific affiliations?Fellow of the Royal Society (London) and the Royal Society of Edinburgh
4. Who was Nikolai Vavilov?He was a brilliant scientist who studied plants and traveled around the world to learn where our favorite foods first grew.
5. What is the "centers of origin" theory?Vavilov said that the places where a crop was first domesticated have the most diverse wild relatives, and those places are key for finding useful traits like disease resistance.

Plant Genetic Resources: The hereditary material in seeds, tissues, and DNA of plants, essential for crop improvement and conservation.
Domestication: The process by which humans selectively breed wild plants or animals over generations to make them more useful or docile.
Landraces: Traditional varieties of a crop that have been developed by farmers over centuries in specific geographic regions, adapted to local conditions.
Biodiversity: The variety of life in the world or in a particular habitat or ecosystem, crucial for ecological stability and resilience.