Lesson Plan: The Fruit Fly That Quarantined California
Grades 7-12
In the summer of 1981, the Mediterranean fruit fly, or medfly, spread through California’s Santa Clara Valley, infesting backyard fruit trees and threatening the state’s $14 billion agricultural industry. It would take more than conventional tools to defeat this bug. A massive ground eradication program failed to stop the medfly, and a plan to spray pesticides sparked angry protests. Today, California continues to fight the medfly, but the tactics have changed, and so have the politics.
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