DNA here we come!

I started teaching one of my favorite topics today:  DNA, RNA and protein synthesis.  I am always fascinated by the complexity, simplicity, and beauty of DNA.  Try as I might, it is sometimes very hard to get the students to be as amazed by it as I am.  So being the perfectionist that I am, I spent HOURS AND HOURS putting together this PowerPoint presentation.  It has 61 slides.  Here are a few photos....

I hope to WOW them with the soap opera drama of Watson and Crick tomorrow.  Want to take a look at my Powerpoint?  Check it out!  It also includes a set of notes for the teacher and a set of notes for the student.

DNA, RNA, and Protein Synthesis  

The Corn Grew!

We have been out of school for a week for our Spring Break holiday.  A week prior to the break, my biology I class started growing some corn seeds for our lab, The Effect of Environment on Gene Expression.  This lab requires 2 observations after the corn starts to grow.  We did the first observation over a week ago.  Today we did the second observation, collected our data and wrote our lab reports.  We expected to get a 75%:25% ratio of green stems to albino stem.  Our actual data came very close to this.  Here are a couple of photos of the growing corn:

The students really love doing this lab.  Many of them took their corn home with them!  A good extension of this would be to do a chi-square analysis of the data.  This particular class is not prepared for that kind of data analysis, so I did not do it with this class.  Maybe next year!

After we finished the lab, we did a practice problem worksheet on Codominance and Multiple Alleles.  I am giving a quiz on these types of problems tomorrow.  Good luck everyone!

Practice Problem Worksheet on Codominance and Multiple Alleles
Quiz: Incomplete Dominance and Codominance
Quiz: Multiple Alleles and Sex-linkage

Genetics is so fun!

The seeds have been planted for the genetics lab called The Effect of Environment on Gene Expression.  The students had a great time planting the seeds, and are having fun watching for the first signs of germination.  Hopefully, in a week or so, the plants will be big enough to classify them as green or albino.

Today, we are starting the monohybrid cross.  Genetics is one of my very favorite topics to teach to students.  It is so easy to keep their attention.  Over the next two days, I will be using several handouts that I have developed on the monohybrid or one factor cross.

Check this one out since it is FREE!!!  Monohybrid Mice!

And I will also be having my students complete these:

Monohybrid Cross Practice Problem Worksheet

Monohybrid Cross Quiz