Madison Niemiec's Elementary Science Methods Blog

  What did you learn this week? This week in lab I learned much more in depth about the translation, insertion, deletion, and substitution of DNA and how it affects mutations. I learned a lot about how mutations can be good, bad, and also neutral. Before today's class I mainly thought of genetic mutations as having negative affects on people, however, I now see that mutations can have no effect. I also learned that substitution does not change or affect the amino acid, but deletion and insertion do. This is because substitution is not changing the rest of the chain, but deletion and insertion do. I was able to see this through the superhero, super villain, and average joe activity.  Are you able to relate what you learned to what you already knew? Yes, I was able to relate what I learned to what I knew. Based on previous knowledge and learning from other classes and the previous weeks of this class I was able to relate my knowledge on RNA and DNA. Today, I was able to use my k...

What did you learn this week? This week I learned the difference between phenotype and genotype. Also, I gained much more understanding about what the difference between DNA and RNA is. Before this past lab, I knew that they were different, but now I am able to clearly define each and I know how to distinguish the nitrogen based pairings as well. Additionally, I learned a lot more about how chromosomes make up the genome and DNA makes up the chromosomes so making those connections to bridge my learning was awesome! How can you apply what you've learned to your teaching in the future? I can apply my learning to future activities that I want to use with my students. I think that the interactive activities of building the double helix and the build your own baby face are activities that young students would really enjoy. I want to use these activities in my classroom because it puts the concepts of DNA its structures, genes and probability all in one lesson! What are new or remaining ...