Summer SAVY, Session 3 Day 3, Dabbling with DNA (Jenkins) (3rd – 4th)
We had a wonderful Wednesday! After our morning meeting/check-in, we got hard at work with a fun Traits Bingo game. Students had bingo cards and had to color their squares when they heard a trait being described that they knew they had. This was an extension of the learning that we had from yesterday’s lesson. We had a lot of winners!
After our bingo game, we watched a short video on the structure of DNA and where exactly the genes/chromosomes were located on the double helix. The geneticists did an activity where they created their own structure of DNA with pipe cleaners. We then went to the middle of the room and made one giant double helix using every student’s structure. This led us to how sometimes the DNA structure has parts that look broken or different, which led to a discussion about genetic mutations that possibly could occur within the structure. So many curious questions were asked such as, “Could the DNA repair itself after a mutation?” It was so awesome to sit in a circle, observe our giant double helix structure, and have an insightful conversation!