Daily Archives: October 15, 2014

DNA Bracelet

DNA caries the instructions for building proteins, proteins are made in ribosomes. In order to get the insructutions for building proteins to the ribosomes, mRNA which is a short strand of genetic information that carries the instructions from one gene on DNA, transports the instructions to the ribosomes. Once it reaches the ribosomes, the ribosomes holds onto the mRNA, reads the instructions and links together amino acid (protein building blocks).

Our bracelet was our first name spelled threw fruit loops, our whole name represented DNA and the fruit loops represented amino acids. The bracelet helped me understand the DNA to protein procedure, because if we made a mistake and put one wrong coloured fruit loop on the bracelet, put on a extra one, or forgot one then the bracelet would not spell our name. Which would also mean that the DNA would not be in the right order and the amino acids would not produce proteins properly.

The DNA bracelet overall was fun to make and did help me to understand the DNA method. I however don’t think that it needs to be improved, it was a fun and easy way to help us comprehend what we are learning.

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Mutant Bee

On the mutation A bee, the affected body part is its antennas, it has 4 antennas instead of  2.                                                                                                                On the mutation B bee, the body part that was affected was the wings, it does not have any wings.                                                                                                       On the mutation C bee, the stinger was the affected body part, it had a half stinger.

The mutation A bee is a positive mutation, because bees use their antennas for everything (touch, smell, taste), by having 2 extra antennas the bees can detect things more easily.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        The mutation B bee is a negative mutation because bees need to fly to flowers and their hive, if they don’t have any wings then they will not be able to do these things and they will die.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 The mutation C bee is also a negative mutation because they use their stingers as self defense, and to protect the hive. If they have a shorter stinger it will be harder to do so, I don’t think its that big of a negative mutation, but if they have a small stinger they will have a more likely chance of not being able to defend themselves when they have to.

I do think that this activity is a good way to help me understand mutations, it gives a good visual effect which helps me see the types of mutation (positive, negative, etc..). I don’t think that this activity would need much of a change at all, but the one thing that i would have liked id that each group has a piece of paper and we pass around the different bees. Then on our paper each group would write down the type of mutation and why, for each bee. I feel like this would help everyone else understand and get a better perspective.

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