Biology 101, Chapter 7, Biology History, Cells, Genetics [and DNA]

This chapter had so much in it that I would loved to have taken 6 weeks!  Or more.  =)
But I did have them pre-study some things during spring break, so that just had to do.

We learned all about cells in the first class.  The composition of just the cell wall is amazing!  They also had to learn all the cell parts and their functions.  I was going to  have them do something like this, but we ended up just drawing on a large dry erase board in the middle of the table.  But I forgot to take pictures.

Then we learned about DNA, which they already knew about.

And we learned about the processes of mitosis (asexual division of cells) and of meiosis (sexual division of cells).  Did you know there are hundreds of genes on each chromosome??

We also learned about genetics, and how meiosis gives us our unique traits.  We did quite a few Punnett squares to get them familiar with how they work as well as the terminology (genotype, phenotype, alleles, homozygous recessive or dominant, heterozygous, etc.).

This just cracks me up! =D

Then we did the fun part.  We made Spud-Doodles!

They had to draw 4 letters (alleles) from cups to see what genotypes were possible for each trait.  Two gray pieces of paper for the father's alleles, and two white for the mother's alleles.  Two alleles  make a genotype [ex. BB, Bb, or bb].  They wrote these genotypes above and beside the Punnet square for that particular feature (eyes, nose, ears, tail, etc), figured the four possible genotypes that would result from the parents' genotypes.  They rolled dice to see, of 1-4, which which of those four they ended up with for that feature.
(While they were doing the drawing and figuring the Punnett squares, I did not let them see the chart that showed which genotype would give them which trait.)

They had to do this for all 8 features, then "decorated" their spud-doodle according to what genotypes they happened to get, going by this chart.

As you can see, we have 3 girl spud-doodles.  JohnDavid kept talking about his as if she was his little girl, and later when he and Bethany were making another pic, he said, "Oh, we gotta do it over; she blinked."  He is hilarious!

My very last class.  Ever.  sniff

Seriously!  The other day after getting everything printed for this class, I closed my document where I type up their schedule... and I've been doing this class for 5 years... and I realized it was the very last time I would close it.
True, it was a pitiful schedule, one I wouldn't share with the public, lol, but still...

My grandbabies?!  hee hee! =D

sMiLeS,