Kendra's Elementary Science Methods 1 Blog

 The first thing we did in lab this week was just on our fast plants. They are starting to reach the end of their lifecycle, so a lot of the leaves are starting to die. Our flowers are still really tall and a vibrant color, but our leaves are starting to turn brown and shrivel up.  This week in lab we talked a lot about mutations. Mutations are changes in an organism's DNA sequence. Mutations can have advantages, disadvantages, and also not even cause any changes. It all depends on what kind of mutation occurs. We did a worksheet that helped us look at what kind of mutation causes changes and what kind does not cause any effect. We also looked at a simulation that let us mutate different DNA strands and see what happened to the amino acids.  I was able to relate this week's lab to a human biology class I took my freshman year in college. We learned about all different kinds of mutations and looked at what kinds of changes occurred. I think it was a lot easier to understan...

This week in lab, the main thing we focused on was DNA. We talked about the structure of DNA and also how it is transferred to children. We watched several videos on the structure of DNA and all the aspects of it, and then we got to create a 3D model of DNA using candy. I thought creating a model of a DNA strand was a good idea. It was cool to be able to use our hands and actually connect A and T and then G and C. It made it very clear which ones always pair with each other. We also did another activity with DNA and we looked at genotype and phenotype. It was really interesting to see how the genotypes of a parent transfer over to their children. It was also cool to see which traits were dominant and recessive.  I can relate this week's learning to previous science classes I have taken. I have learned about DNA in a high school science class, and then also a biology class I took freshman year of college. This prior knowledge I already had made this week's lab activities easier ...