Last semester, the students studied genetics. This semester the students' studies will be slightly distracted by the joys of Valentine's Day and Prom.
While the students were working on a practice assignment one of the guys stopped me and said, "Hey Mr. Davis. I have a question for you and it's not about the assignment."
He began asking me questions about how we get blue roses. I let him know that blue roses are artificially colored white roses and that blue coloration in nature is quite rare.
After talking about it for a couple of minutes, I asked, "What's the interest in blue roses?"
Turns out there's a nice girl he'd like to impress. Her favorite color is blue, and he wanted to get her a bunch of blue roses. Specifically, he wanted some with blue and white stripes. I mentioned the word "variegated" and he said, "Hey, isn't that co-dominance?" I replied in the affirmative, and what he said next made me happy and a little sad: "Hey! Biology in real life!"
I was glad that he made the connection to his experiences, but we may have missed an opportunity to help him make that connection during the unit of study. This type of thing will be a good item to bookmark in my brain; much may be learned through romantic endeavors.
After a quick banter about genetics, I recommended that he walk into a florist's shop and see if they could help get him some blue roses. I am not only a biology teacher, but a floral adviser, too.
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