Maddy's Science Methods I Blog

What did you learn this week? This week we learned more about evolution specifically talking about the driving factors of evolution. We talked about how evolution is the process by which species change over time with favorable traits. We learned about the drivers for evolution are natural selection, gene drift, migration, and mutation.   Are you able to relate what you learned to what you already knew ?  This week's activity reminded me of the bunny simulation that we got to play around with in the lecture last Thursday. In the bunny simulation, we could mess with the amount of food available, the offspring produced, and the predators around to see the population of the bunnies change.  How can you apply what you learned in your teaching in the future? I really enjoyed this week's lab as it was a hands-on learning activity called "Preying on Beans" which was a really interactive way to help students learn about the process of adaptation and selection. Similar to the ...

What did I learn this week? This week we continued our learning of genetic material but exploring the role that mutation plays in it. We talked about 3 different types of genetic mutation, insertion, deletion, and substitution. We learned that substitution is the replacement of a DNA base with a different base. We learned that insertion mutations add one or more DNA bases and deletion mutations remove one or more bases which can impact the mRNA, and consequently, the amino acid that's translated. We learned this through an activity where we made a superhero and examined the differences between the DNA, more closely discussing the effects that mutations can have on different organisms. Mutations can be beneficial, harmful, or even have a neutral impact on organisms like the majority of mutations.  Are you able to relate what you learned to what you already knew?  Prior to this week, I was already familiar with the process of creating DNA and mRNA but it was cool to use the simu...

  1. What did I learn this week?  This week, we continued talking about DNA and how DNA is the blueprint for living things. We watched a few videos explaining DNA and how it's located within the nucleus of a cell. DNA looks like a twisted latter that has bases paired together. We talked about how Adenine is paired with thymine and cytosine is paired with guanine. It seems like a twisted ladder and we were actually able to participate in an activity where we created our own strands of DNA. We mix and matched the sides that bases were on and even twisted it to create something that actually looked just like DNA! We also took a look into creating our children and used a coin to determine the genes that the parents had. It was very similar to an activity that I did back in 7th grade where we did something similar. It puts a different perspective on genealogy and how hard it is for recessive traits to be passed down to offspring.  2. What parts were clear and what were confusi...

What did I learn this week? At the beginning of the class, we observed our fast plant growth and looked at the different elements present in our flower heads. My group came to the conclusion that our plant is about halfway through its life cycle as the little flowers are blossoming and our plant is growing tall. We placed a stick in the center and used rings to help the plant grow straight up and look taller. We also pollinated our plants with bees to mimic how bees pollinate plants. We also listened to the reading of the book "Turtle, Turtle, Watch Out!" by April Sayre and examined the cause-and-effect relationships that were present within the book and the fortune-teller game. With this game, each square had a different text indicating that our turtle either survived or died. Dr. You counted how many "turtles" were left each round and created a graph. Our class data reflected the 1 in 1,000 turtles that survive to their adulthood.  How can I apply what I've le...