Teaching the
Concepts of Genetics
Presented by:
Keith Madden
Alvin Essenberg
Kasi Bolden
Susan Rathwick
Drosophila Basic
Studying the Monohybrid Cross
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Cost: $87.95
Presented by Alvin Essenburg
Kit Includes
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Anesthetizer
Sorting brushes
Culture containers
Instant Drosophila medium
Teacher's Notes
Supplies Needed:
– Wild and Sepia Drosophila cultures (not part of
cost)
– Disecting Scope (Magnifying glasses are difficult
to use)
Procedure
Step 1: Remove all Sepia adults from culture
– Mature adult females can't be used because they
can store sperm for their entire life
Sepia
Procedure
2. When new fruit flies hatch in Sepia culture:
– Remove all adults in Sepia culture within 6-8 hrs.
– Sort and isolate females for 3-4 days in new
culture tube.
Sepia
Sepia females
Sepia males
Sorting Male and Female
Procedure
3. Setup new culture tubes.
– Place 5 Sepia female and 5 Wild males in each.
• (P generation)
Sepia Female
Wild
Sepia Female x Wild Male
Procedure
Flies will breed and lay eggs.
Sepia Female x Wild Male
Procedure
4. After 7-10 days, before new flies hatch, remove all adults.
Sepia Female x Wild Male
Procedure
5. New flies will be the F1 generation, remove adults within
6-8 hours and tally each species
• All will be Wild (Red eyes)
F generation
1
Procedure
6. As new F1 generation flies hatch, place 5 male and 5
female F1 in a new culture.
F generation
1
F xF
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1
Procedure
6. As new F1 generation flies hatch, place 5 male and 5
female F1 in a new culture.
F generation
1
F xF
1
1
Procedure
7. Remove adults within 6-8 hours and tally each species
– New flies will be the F2 generation.
• About ¼ should hatch as Sepia
F xF
1
1
Evaluation
Pros
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Students get to actually do a monohybrid cross
High interest lab
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Very time consuming and scheduled
Medium grew mold easily
May be difficult for students to sort flies at home
Could choose different varieties that can't fly
Cons
Protein Synthesis
Flinn Scientific
FB1760
$46.30
Kasi L. Bolden
Washington H.S.
Protein Synthesis
• Objective: The objective is to show how
individual genes are translated into protein
chains.
• Experiment overview: In this activity,
models of mRNA, tRNA, amino acids and
ribosomes will be used to better
understand protein synthesis.
Teaching Tips
• Students should know where transcription and translation occurs.
• Student should know that the triplet of bases brought by tRNA are
anticodons and is complementary to an mRNA codon.
• Students should have a basic understanding of nucleic acids,
transcriptions and translation before beginning the activity.
• A summary discussion after each step may be worthwhile to be
sure of students’ comprehension before moving on to the next
step.
Materials
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Ribosome
mRNA strand
tRNA
Amino acid round chips, 20 (10)
Label, round 20(10)
Marker
Tape, double stick
Tape, transparent
*Protein Synthesis Worksheet( not provided)
Protein Synthesis Questionnaire
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4.
Does the lab present protein synthesis in the proper
sequence so students will gain understanding?
Yes or No
Are there any materials that can be substituted or
eliminated?
Do you think the first and second steps of the procedure
are necessary?
Do you feel it’s necessary to teach the importance of 3’ &
5’?
Please list any flaws in this activity. List any flaw that may
cause confusion
Analyzing Population Growth Kit
Carolina
Item #251012
Price $99.95
Materials for 32
students working
in groups of 4
Objectives/Learning Goals
• Students analyze the effects of resources on
yeast as they explore population growth.
Objectives/Learning Goals
• Develop the skills necessary to design &
perform scientific investigations
• Produce a testable hypothesis
• Investigate the effects of environmental
conditions on a model lab species
Objectives/Learning Goals
• Derive the relationship between resource quality
and population growth
• Develop connections with the key concepts of
logistic and exponential growth, carrying
capacity, and population pyramids
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Materials Supplied
32 petri dishes
Parafilm®
4 yeast malt media bottles
100 pipets (graduated)
9 sterile pipets
9 yeast packets
18 g lactose
• 30 ml excess nitrate
• 2 sheets black construction
paper
• 8 fine-point permanent
markers
• 8 inoculating loops
• 40 test tubes
• 16 Lazy-L-Spreaders™
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Materials Not Supplied
Safety glasses
Heat-resistant gloves
8 glass beakers, 400ml
8 Bunsen burners
8 flint lighters
1 gallon distilled H2O
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8 hot plates
8 dissecting scopes
8 thermometers
Laboratory balances
Weight boats 2 spatulas
8 graduated cylinders, 100
ml
• 8 flasks, 125 ml
Background Vocabulary
• Age ratio
• Carrying
capacity
• Demographics
• Emigration
• Population
pyramid
• Exponential
growth
• Immigration
• Logistic growth
• Population
• resources
Lab Could Be Used During the
Study of…..
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Interdependence of organisms
Behavior of organisms
Population growth
Natural resources
Environmental quality
Natural & human-induced hazards
Background Knowledge
• Exponential growth – if a population is not limited by
resources, and increases at a faster rate as the number
of individuals increases.
• Logistic growth - describes a growth rate that levels off
and is maintained.
• Population pyramid – graph showing how the total
population is split among various age brackets.
• Yeast- microscopic, unicellular fungi able to live with our
without O2
• Plate streaking
techniques
Activity #1
• Requires students to fill 3 test tubes with yeast and
either glucose or lactose as a food source. Test tubes
are covered and placed in a hot water bath 35-40° C.
• Students will record growth in 2 minute intervals for a
total of 10 minutes
• A fourth tube is filled as a control group.
• Results are shared among the teams
Activity #2
• Requires students to choose 1 of four treatments they
hypothesize will produce the most growth in the yeast
population
• Treatments
• Glucose
• Lactose
• Nitrate
• Light intensity
• Students are required to write their hypothesis and
reasoning for this in their lab notebook
• Procedures are provided for each of the 4 treatments
students will choose.
• After the plates are prepared they will invert and leave
for three days
• After 3 days the groups will decide how to rate the
growth in the petri dishes, writing down the comparative
data in their lab notebook and creating a bar graph to
display the data
• Students analyze the results
• Prior to Step 1 (follow the first step in Activity 1)
• Warm up a beaker of 40 mL distilled water to about 3040°C.
• Remove from heat and add 3.5 g of yeast
• Cover it with a 4-square block of Parafilm®
• Let yeast activate for 10 minutes
Comparative
Proteomics Kit I:
Protein Profiler Module
Bio-Rad 166-2700EDU
32 students
List Price: $203.75
Refill: $ 94.00
Comparative Proteomics
Kit I: Protein Profiler
Module
Laemmli sample buffer
Kaleidoscope™ prestained standards
Tris-glycine-SDS electrophoresis buffer
Bio-Safe™ Coomassie stain for proteins
Actin and myosin standard
Dithiothreitol (DTT)
Pipet tips for gel loading
Test tubes,transfer pipets, gel-staining trays,
test tube holders
Teacher's Guide, Student Manual, and
graphic Quick Guide
Required Accessories Not
Included in Kit
Fish samples 5–8 types
Adjustable micropipets, 2–20 µl
Power supplies
Water bath
If using polyacrylamide gel
electrophoresis:
Vertical gel electrophoresis chambers
Precast polyacrylamide gels
Is There Something Fishy About Teaching
Evolution?
Can Biomolecular Evidence Be Used
to Determine Evolutionary
Relationships?
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Traits are the result of Structure and Function
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Proteins determine structure and function
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DNA codes for proteins that confer traits
• DNA -> RNA -> Protein -> Trait
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Changes in DNA lead to proteins with:
• Different functions
• Novel traits
• Positive, negative, or no effects
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Genetic diversity provides pool for natural selection
= evolution
Explore Biochemical Evidence for
Evolution
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Analyze protein profiles from a variety of fish
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Study protein structure/function
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Use polyacrylamide electrophoresis to separate proteins
by size
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Construct cladograms using data from students’ gel
analysis
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Compare biochemical and phylogenetic relationships.
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Sufficient materials for 8 student workstations
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Can be completed in three 45 minute lab sessions
Workshop Timeline
• Introduction
• Sample Preparation
• Load and electrophorese protein samples
• Compare protein profiles
• Construct cladograms
Sample Preparation
Lab Period 1
Label one 1.5 ml fliptop tube for each of five
fish samples. Also label one screwcap
micro tube for each fish sample.
Add 250 μl of Bio-Rad Laemmli sample buffer
to each labeled fliptop microtube.
Cut a piece of each fish muscle about 0.25 x
0.25 x 0.25 cm3 and transfer each piece
into a labeled fliptop tube. (Close the lid!)
Sample Preparation
Lab Period 1 (con’t)
Agitate the tissue in the sample buffer;
Incubate for 5 minutes at room
temperature.
Carefully transfer the buffer labeled screwcap
tube. Do not transfer the fish!
Heat the fish samples in screwcap microtubes
for 5 minutes at 95°C. Freeze until lab
period 2.
Electrophoresis
Lab Period 2
Heat extracted fish samples and actin and
myosin standard to 95°C for 2–5 min. This
dissolves any detergent in the extraction
(Laemmli) buffer that may have precipitated
upon freezing.
Electrophoresis
Lab Period 2 (con’t)
Load your gel:
• 5 μl Precision Plus Protein Kaleidoscope
prestained standards (Stds)
• 10 μl fish sample 1
• 10 μl fish sample 2
• 10 μl fish sample 3
• 10 μl actin and myosin standard (AM)
Electrophoresis
Lab Period 2 (con’t)
Electrophorese for 30 minutes at 200 V in 1x
TGS electrophoresis buffer.
After electrophoresis, stain the sample with 25
ml Bio-Safe Coomassie blue stain per gel.
Stain gel for 1 hour, with gentle shaking for
best results.
Electrophoresis
Lab Period 3
Destain gels in water for at least 30 minutes
to overnight, changing the water at least
once.
Blue-stained bands will be visible on a clear
gel after destaining.
Analysis
Lab Period 3 (con’t)
Correlate bands of fish samples with AM and
Kaleidoscope standards.
Check online protein database for correlation
of sample proteins with those of the
species in the databases.
Guided by similarity of protein content, draw
cladogram relating fish species.