A foam noodle model of restriction enzyme digestions

Stephen FlanaganPurvis High School Research based lesson1 class, 18 students10.27.2014

Objectives BIO1:

Examine the life processes to conclude the role enzymes play in regulating biochemical reactions. (DOK 2)

Examine inheritance patterns using current technology (e.g., pedigrees, karyotypes, gel electrophoresis). (DOK 2)

Genetics:Distinguish and explain the applications of various tools and techniques used in DNA manipulation (DOK 1)

Recently, I have been digestinggenes using restriction enzymes

I am looking at the speciation event between these 2 species, which requires a means to accurately differentiate species

The haplotypes I find in these 2 fish species

are only associated with only a single

species

AGCTA

AATTGGCTTC

T–3’

AGCTA

AATTGCCTTC

T-3’

Engage

the how many “species” game

Explore

Explain

Elaboratetoothpick the fragments back together and look for

more restriction sites

Alu1

then compare with everyone else in the class and see if this new cut pattern would be able to differentiate the

2 species

Evaluate

Built into the handout was a series of questions about how / what they were doing

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/

lesson assessment • I would do this for a genetics course• concept was hard for them to grasp• the overall importance of telling one species from

another was not clear to them

http://kfcusa.org/storage/hands-raised.jpg