Explain the Structure of DNA
DNA is made of sugars, specifically deoxyribose, phosphates and nitrogen bases. It is a large polymer with two sugar backbones with nucleotide bases creating a ladder between the two backbones. These bases always bond with the same base partner.
How does this activity help model the structure of DNA? What changes could we make to improve the accuracy of this model?
This activity helped by being able to see a 3D version of what were learning. It is easy to understand the base pairing when it is hands on and colour coded. I think this model could be better if it was bigger and we had more space the really space things out and label them to really understand what every little part is.
When does DNA replication occur?
DNA replication happens before a cell starts to divide.
Name and describe the 3 steps involved in DNA replication.
DNA Helicase – Unwinding and unzipping
DNA Polymerase – complimentary base pairing
DNA Ligase – Joining of adjacent nucleotides
The model today wasn’t a great fit for the process we were exploring. What did you do to model the complimentary base pairing and joining of adjacent nucleotides steps of DNA replication. In what ways was this activity well suited to showing this process? In what ways was it inaccurate?
It was well suited because we can understand the basic structure but it is hard to understand the true process when we use these materials.
Describe the process of translation: initiation, elongation and termination.
Initiation – mRNA holds onto the small ribosome subunit and then the two ribosome sub units join together.
Elongation – Ribosome holds mRNA and the tRNA attacks to the binding sites. The tRNA binds p site and a site. Ribosome Modesto mRNA.
Termination – The elongation cycle continues until a stop codon.
How did today’s activity do a good job of modelling the process of translation? In what ways was our model inaccurate?
The activity we did was good because we can understand the movement with the slider we used but it was less detailed and theres more parts to the amino acids and subunits.