Solving the Maize | Big History Project | Celebrating 10 Years of OER Project

Big History teaches us that the more complex something is, the more fragile it becomes. The COVID-19 pandemic and war in Ukraine have revealed just how complex—and fragile—our global food systems are. This complexity is the product of a long history of how humans learned to feed themselves. To understand that history, and to search for answers to the challenges we face today and will encounter tomorrow, we’ll examine the Big History of a single grain. Maize was an agent of complexity in the Americas, and when colonizers spread it to new places, it launched global transformations. Today, we use it for everything, and it has become a cornerstone of our global food systems. Maize could also help us with the challenges we might face in the future, as we strive to combat the impacts of climate change.

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