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Programs for Talented Youth

Summer SAVY, Session 1 Day 5, Molecular Genetics (5th-6th)

Posted by on Friday, June 13, 2025 in blog, SAVY.

Happy Friday the 13th!  The only unfortunate thing that happened to us was the rain; otherwise, we had a good day.  We started with a lesson about karyotypes, which included images of the 46 chromosomes arranged in their pairs.  We talked about what makes the pairs different, that they have different genes on them, and that the last pair, the X and Y, determines one’s gender.  I had them think about the difference between autosomal inheritance (the 22 pairs that are not the X and Y) and X-linked inheritance.  They came to appreciate that autosomal inheritance is the same in females and males, but the X and Y inheritance is different.  We talked about red/green colorblindness as an example of an X-linked recessive trait.  Ask your child to show you the karyotype (or look up a human karyotype) and explain why males are much more likely to express X-linked recessive traits.  Maybe they can use a Punnett square to demonstrate.  

ORA was next (a classic game of kickball), and then off to the computer lab.  Before resuming our research, we talked about mutations and differentiated between autosomal recessive and dominant, X-linked recessive, and chromosome-level mutations.  Then they did any remaining research and started putting together their genetic disease poster.  This took some time and continued after lunch.  They were focused, and some students who had finished helped others.  As you will see, their poster included a section where they introduced the disease, a section on symptoms, and a section on treatments and prognosis.  Hopefully, their poster survived the journey home, and they can tell you about it.  You can ask them about the difference between dominant and recessive forms of traits, what it means for a trait to be autosomal, and what it means for a trait to be X-linked.   

We finished the day with presentations.  We coached them a bit on presentation skills, such as looking at your audience, not reading the poster, and projecting, and told them this is something they will be working on as they progress through their education.  They did a solid job and enjoyed presenting their posters.  I enjoyed working with this enthusiastic group and hope that they enjoyed the class.  In a future class, they can say, “I learned that at SAVY!”  Several expressed an interest in learning more about genetics, so here are some resources.