Mariana is a girl...  

...who lives in the Dominican Republic.   

She loves her garden and spends many hours there taking care of her plants. But one plant isn’t doing well— her ohelo (pronounced o-HAY-low) berry plant. Her friend Pablo brought the ohelo from Hawaii for her (of course, obtaining special permission and quarantining the plant beforehand). It used to have flowers and red berries, but not anymore. It still has flowers, but no berries.   

Mariana doesn’t know why this is, so her father suggests that she ask her Tía (aunt) Leti who is an agricultural engineer. Mariana visits her aunt and explains the problem. “Tía Leti, I’ve been taking extra special care of my ohelo plant, but it will not produce berries.”   

Tía Leti asks Mariana if she knows how plants make seeds Tía Leti asks Mariana if she knows how plants make seeds. Mariana does and explains the process of pollination to her aunt. Tía Leti explains that there are seeds inside of berries—this causes Mariana to wonder and “Ask” if her plant is being pollinated.  

Mariana decides to test this hypothesis by observing her ohelo plant to see if there are any insects visiting it and, indirectly, pollinating it. Her aunt gives her a journal with which to collect her data and…  

…Mariana gets to work.  

For weeks, she watches butterflies and other insects visit the plants in the garden.  

Mariana soon realizes that not a single insect is visiting her ohelo plant.  

When she tells her aunt about what she observed, this leads to a discussion about why insects visit flowers and the benefits of this behavior to both the insect (food) and the plant (pollination).  

When Mariana realizes that there is nectar in her ohelo plant, she asks, “Why won’t the insects come to eat it?” Her Tía Leti then responds with this analogy, “imagine that you came over to my house for dinner, and on the table I laid out some food. But I put all the food in the very center of the table where you couldn’t reach it. Do you think you would have a very good dinner?”  

So with that thought, Mariana starts to think up solutions for her ohelo plant and wonders if she might bring in an insect from Hawaii to pollinate her plant.  

To think through her solution, Mariana decides to go visit her aunt at work.  

While Mariana is there, she learns about invasive species…  

…pesticides, and Integrated Pest Management.  

Mariana decides that she might have a better solution to her problem—pollinating the plant herself rather than introducing an invasive species.  

Tía Leti shows Mariana a technology that she uses in her work—a hand pollinator.  

Tía Leti then tells Mariana about the Engineering Design Process and how it will help her create her hand pollinator. By asking more questions, imagining, planning…  

…creating and testing, and improving, Mariana creates a successful hand pollinator. NOTE: The storybook is purposefully vague about Mariana’s successful design because we do not want students to believe that Mariana’s solution is the only solution.  

And sure enough, her ohelo plant produces berries.  

The end.