- How does this model show:
- This model contains marshmallows and licorice. The marshmallows represent the nitrogenous bases and the licorice represents the Sugar Phosphate backbone.
- What is DNA?
- Deoxyribonucleic acid is referred to by the acronym DNA. All organisms with a life contain DNA. Furthermore, all living creatures share the same DNA molecule structure! DNA resembles a double helix when it is stretched out after being removed from a cell. The backbone and rungs of the DNA ladder are referred to as bases, and their sides are known as the ladder’s sides.
- In DNA, there are four chemical bases: (A) Adenine Guanine, Cytosine, and Thymine
- What does DNA do?
- One of the main things DNA does is carry out genetic information. It is like an instruction manual for how a living organism grows, reproduces and functions. Your DNA is passed on from your parents which is why some of your features are similar to your parents. This could be your hair colour, eyes, skin colour, etc. Another important job the DNA does is converting information into protein which helps make your body.
- How easily DNA can copy itself?
- DNA is a molecule that can be replicated perfectly. Each cell contains DNA that can be used to create all the other cells. A single cell can convert into trillions of cells through this process. The replication uses DNA polymerases which are molecules whose job is to copy DNA. The process of replication takes several hours but in the end you are left with twice the amount of DNA you need. Every time the cell divides, it can takes this excess DNA and give it to the daughter cell and parental cell making them genetically identical.
- Mr. Robinson also demonstrated this in class. When he broke apart the DNA strand (the licorice) the marshmallows toothpicks also separated. This resulted in 2 licorice strands and each one of them having a stick of marshmallow.
- What further questions do you have after building this model?
- What would happen if the DNA has a mutation?
- Answer: If the DNA has a mutation it could go two ways. It could either be beneficial or harmful. If we look at it beneficially, mutations can lead to new variations of protein that can help organisms adapt to changes in the environment. They can increase an organisms chance to grow and reproduce. Examples of positive mutations are, antibiotic-resistant. This allows them to survive in presence of an antibiotic drug.
- If we look at this negatively, harmful mutations can cause genetic disorders. Some disorders include Cancer. Cancer happens when cells start to grow out of control and start forming abnormal masses.
- How and when was the DNA discovered?
- DNA was discovered in 1869 by a Swiss researcher Friedrich Miescher whose original goal was to study the composition of White Blood cells. Instead, he isolated a new molecule he named “Nuclein” from a cell nucleus. This was just the beginning of the DNA and after Friedrich many researchers dove further into studying the DNA.
Bibliography:
DNA Replication (genome.gov)
DNA Replication Process with Diagrams Class 12 – Prokaryotic & Eukaryotic DNA Replication (byjus.com)
4.10: Mutation Effects – Biology LibreTexts
History of DNA – What is DNA & How Was It Discovered? | LunaDNA
CoDesign
Our class had the wonderful opportunity meet Saul Mwame who is a beekeeper from Tanzania. Mr. Robinson introduced Saul to us through zoom for the first time and we researched about Saul to be able to ask questions about his business, when he might be visiting Canada and information about bees. Saul runs a business a Haven Bees and takes cares of bee. He has spoken at the UN and has accomplished so much at such a young age. We have been talking to Saul over the past few months and were lucky enough to have Saul come in person and talk to us. I was extremely excited when I heard the news and looked forward to talking to him. Mr. Robinson put us in groups to ask Saul different questions and the question that stood out me was, “How can we help your business?” Saul explained how he was having trouble advertising and could use more help in that.
I had the chance to have a one on one conversation with Saul as he was sitting beside me.
He explained how he was struggling with advertising his products and company online. After listening to his issues, I asked Saul how I could help with his problem and he said do anything you can to make my products gain more recognition. I connected to this problem and knew at that moment that I had to help Saul. I’m always on social media and have had a couple ideas on what to do.
CoOperate – How could you take action on your idea?
The big question was, “How can we help Saul’s business through advertising” Mr. Robinson allowed us to choose groups for this assignment. Maia and me had the same ideas for this assignment which is why we decided to work together. We both came to the conclusion that using the MakerSpace would be the best option for this project as we both had never used it and wanted to try out something new. We did some research on the 3-D printers and what websites we would need to use to operate the printers and pin makers. Since all this is very new to Maia and me we required Ms. Leung and Ms. Henderson’s and the peer tutor (Narissa) to help us. They introduced to a a new website called Cricut which is basically a website which helped deign our pins. After learning all this, we had plans and goals set. We created a deadline for each of our steps. Our steps included, discussion, designing and creating. We were juggling around with two ideas, one was either creating a circuit or do something artistic like pins. Maia and me finally decided that the pins would be the best option as it seemed the most beneficial to help Saul. Thanks to Ms. Henderson, Ms. Leung and Narissa for being so patient and helpful!
Our plan:
Monday= start plan/ projects
Tuesday= start designing the basic idea.
Wednesday= talk with Ms. Henderson
Thursday= we will start using the machines
Our goal was to be organized and complete our work with excellence which is why we had a thorough plan set beforehand to get the work done efficiently.
CoCreate – What creative idea do you have to help address the needs you learned about in Tanzania?
By this point, we knew we definitely wanted to help advertise Saul’s company, “Haven Bees” During our brainstorming process we had multiple ideas on what to do. We talked about making hoodies, stickers, pins, etc. We had a lot of things in mind but decided to put all work into the pins. With the time we were given, making hoodies seemed unrealistic which is why we wanted to do the stickers and pins. We decided to focus on making the pins first and then move onto the stickers if we had extra time. We were only able to make about 4-5 pins as a lot of our time went into learning how to use Cricut and operate the pin makers.
Pins are small items that can easily catch customer’s eye, can be worn anywhere and are cheap. Selling pins and advertising his business seemed like the most efficient idea. Our initial ideas was using his company’s logo colours and making a little cartoon out of that. After a bit, we both decide that we were over complicating the idea and decided that using a simple bee would look more appealing as they are the OG honey producers and simple to create. We looked at multiple bee designs and if they would look good after we used Cricut to modify them. After some brainstorming and thinking we used this: PICTURE OF THE BEE PINS
To make all our ideas into reality we took action, created proper dimension to fit the bee design on the pin and took turns using the pin maker. Ms. Henderson taught us how to operate the pin maker and showed us how to make one pin. After that, Maia and me made a couple and gave 1 to Saul and the other to his boss Scott Gordon.
To make everything workout efficiently we had to required a few skills,
- Communication: As this was a group assignment, the communication between Maia and me had to be strong. We both listened to each others ideas and took the strong points from everything we discussed to make this project a success.
- Creativity: This project is all about helping Saul in creative ways. I didn’t hold back in this assignments and let my mind take over. This allowed me to express what designs I had in mind and apply them using different tools.
- Learning Mindset: A lot of things we learnt required having a mindset which encouraged leaning. All this was a new experience and a having a positive mindset is important for this assignment.
Materials:
- MakerSpace
- Cricut: Designing and getting the right dimension for the pins
- Pins
- Pin Maker
- A thin sheet of plastic to put on the pin
Commemorate – How did the process go?
Overall, the process went smoothly. It was a great experience meeting Saul. What he is doing is awesome and his company definitely needs more recognition which is why we stepped in to help him out. Connecting with a person like Saul is truly amazing as he is such an inspiration. The process of creating the pins was a lengthy process of discussion, planning and designing. This project allowed us to explore the Makerspace and a new tool called the pin maker.
We chose to use pins as pins are such a versatile object. Almost every fundraiser, fair and promotions I see small pins being handed out. They are small but mighty an we hope to make these pins in bulk to hand out. We also wanted to keep the design nice and simple as overcomplicating it could make it not pop out.
Going into the Makerspace was fun and all the teachers were super welcoming. This made the process of making the pins so much easier as we didn’t hesitate to ask questions and all our questions were answered.
Everything was coming together and our first 3 pins came out the pin maker flawlessly. When we making our 4th pin a problem occurred. We put the pin in the pin maker but realized that the metal portion of the pin was missing making our pin come out in a weird shape and the plastic expanding way too much. Both of us were confused but we recovered by resetting the machine and starting all over again. That definitely alarmed us but we solved the problem with a quick fix. In the, all our be pins came out exactly the way we wanted them to.
For future assignments, I want to improve my time-management skills. We only had 4 days to design, plan, make and write out everything for the assignment. I felt rushed and sometimes started panicking because I was unsure about if we were going to finish in time. Time was ticking faster than ever and we finished our pins 5 mins before the deadline. We hustled but I’m very happy with our pins. We had very little time to do this blog post too. To finish this blog post in time I worked at my fastest pace.
I’m extremely grateful for the opportunity to meet Saul and Mr. Gordon and hope I can still keep helping them out in the future.
normal functions and grows. During the interphase, the cell receives nutrients and creates and uses protein. An example of interphase is an intestinal lining cell absorbing nutrients.
is part of the cell’s skeleton. Its task is to organize the chromosomes and move them around during mitosis. In this phase, the chromosomes also start to condense making it easier to pull apart in later stages.
chromosomes. The chromosomes from the previous stage have become even more condensed making them compact. The spindle fibres attach to centromeres of chromosomes. The spindle grows bigger and some of the microtubules start to capture chromosomes.
them to depart from each other. Each is now their own chromosome and settle at the opposite ends of a cell.
Reload document 
Open in new tab