My Science Box

Time
45-50 minutes

Grouping
Individual

Materials
Each student needs:

• 20 alphabet beads (6-7 mm) with the letters A, C, G, and/or T. Available for very reasonable prices ($2.00 for a bag of 100 beads) from Enterprise Art Item #1299011 (A), #1299013 (C), #1299013 (G), #1299030 (T)
• 40 colored beads (6-7 mm) to represent phosphates. See Enterprise Art ($2.19 for a bag of 1000) Item #100420 (red).
• 40 colored beans (6-7 mm) to represent sugars. See Enterprise Art ($2.19 for a bag of 1000) Item #100463 (turquoise).
• 20-30 seed beads in assorted colors to represent hydrogen bonds. See Enterprise Art ($1.99 for 75 grams of assorted seed beads) Item #144117.
• 40 cm of beading wire (26-28 gauge). See Enterprise Art ($2.54 per spool) Item #430602 (silver).
• Optional: earring hooks, Christmas ornament wires, wire loops for pendants, key rings, etc. See Enterprise Art ($2.54 for 48 fishhook earring hooks) Item #144202 (silver).

Students create DNA models from beads and wire that may be used as earrings, pendants, Christmas ornaments, and/or key chain pulls. This project is simple enough that a good substitute ...

Sickle Cell Anemia
Sickle-shaped red blood cellsSickle cell disease is a disorder that affects the red blood cells. Red blood cells use a protein called hemoglobin to transport oxygen from the lungs to the rest of the body. Normally, red blood cells are round and flexible so they can travel freely through the narrow blood vessels.

Patients with sickle cell disease have a mutation in a gene that codes for part of the hemoglobin protein. As a result, hemoglobin does not form properly, causing red blood cells to be oddly shaped. These irregularly shaped cells get stuck in the blood vessels and are unable to transport oxygen properly, causing pain, frequent infections, and damage to the organs. Patients with sickle cell disease only survive to be 20 to 30 years old. About 1 in 500 babies born in America has the disease.

The normal hemoglobin nucleic acid sequence looks like:
T A C C A C G T G G A C T G A G G A C T C
A T G G T G C A C C T G A C T C C T G A G

Cystic Fibrosis
Cycstic fibrosis breathing apparatusCystic fibrosis is a genetic disease that affects many different parts of the body. There are approximately 30,000 Americans with cystic fibrosis. The most serious problem is the production of extremely thick, sticky mucus that clogs up the bronchial tubes in the lungs and the passageways in the pancreas (remember, the pancreas makes digestive juices that help break down food). This causes malnutrition, diabetes, lung infections, and difficulty getting enough oxygen to the body. Most people with cystic fibrosis die in their 20s or 30s from lung failure.

The following are a series of real world genetics problems that relate to the genetic disorders cystic fibrosis and sickle cell anemia. They may be used to give students practice ...

Standards
Grade 7
Genetics
2. A typical cell of any organism contains genetic instructions that specify its traits. Those traits may be modified by environmental influences. As a basis for understanding this concept:
b.     Students know sexual reproduction produces offspring that inherit half their genes from each parent.
c.     Students know an inherited trait can be determined by one or more genes.

Assessment

1. Invisible Dragons is an excellent alternative assessment tool that requires students use all their previous skills to solve a puzzle. I used the Invisible Dragons as an extra credit challenge for the students who wanted to try.

Getting Ready

1. Download the Biologica program to each computer. Follow the step by step directions given on the Concord Consortium website.

Lesson Plan

1. Open the Pedagogica program.
2. Open the Biologica folder. 
3. Begin working on activity #1 - Introduction. From here, it is very self explanatory. Students can work at their own pace. Students who finish early can work on some of the optional activities.

Teacher Background
My middle school students absolutely adored working on the program and begged me for more time to spend in the computer lab on it. The logical reasoning skills required in the advanced activities is quite sophisticated so use caution when requiring this program of students in 6th grade or below.

The Concord Consortium has created an excellent, downloadable teacher guide so see their materials for additional teacher background information. For questions about the software itself, see the Frequently Asked Questions area.

Time
Students may spend anywhere between 1-8 hours playing with dragon genetics. There are 12 activities total. Each activity takes students between 20-50 minutes to complete depending on how quickly the child works. The full sequence is as follows:

• Introduction – What do dragons look like and why?
• Rules – What’s the relationship between genotype and phenotype?
• Meiosis – Why don’t family members look the same?
• Horns Dilemma – Can 2 horned parents have a hornless baby?
• Monohybrid – What can you learn from pedigrees?
• X Linkage – What happens if a gene is part of the X chromosome?
• Mutations – A unicorn dragon! What happened?
• Mutations 2 – What happens if you change the DNA?
• Dihybrid cross – How likely is it for 2 traits to be inherited together?
• Scales – How do you study the inheritance of a new mutation?
• Invisible dragons – Dan you determine the genotype of parent dragons just by looking at the phenotypes of the offspring?
• Plates – How are plates inherited?