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Dollar Store Ideas: Easter Egg Genetics!
It’s that time of year! Time to stock up on plastic easter eggs. It’s actually pretty difficult to get these little guys at other times of the year, but before Easter, you can find them everywhere! You can buy a whole bunch of eggs, , some pipe cleaners, and some googly eyes with about […]
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The Marvelous Drosophila: Exciting World of Fruit Fly Genetics
Flies really are the coolest model organism to study. Despite the fact they like to stowaway in your hair, there are a lot of reasons why Drosophila are exciting to study. 1. They are so colorful! The eye colors are truly beautiful to observe. When scientists are creating new mutants, sometimes the […]
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Secrets of a Drosophila Researcher: Things You Might Not Know About Working with Fruit Flies
After my semester of avoiding a transformation into a were-rat, I applied to a Drosophila melanogaster genetics lab. I liked it so much I stayed for two summers and two full school years, until I graduated. Here are some secrets about Drosophila research that everybody who works in a fly lab knows. 1. You […]
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How I Fell In Love With Genetics
One of my favorite things to teach is genetics. There is something so unique about the field in all of biology. In fact, it is the field that convinced me to become a biologist in college and go to grad school. In the coming weeks, I will write a blog series about how genetics is […]
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Using LEGO® Bricks to Model DNA Replication
One day, I was playing in my living room with my almost 3 year old son and we were building with his Lego® Bricks. My living room floor pretty much always looks like this: I have had a teaching challenge simmering in my head for a while now. How do I help students really […]
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Silent Mutations aren’t exactly Silent
An article in the “Life is Complicated” Series. Life is complicated. When I was in college and friends asked me why I loved the TV show “LOST”. Anyone who watched a random episode in the middle of the season usually came away from it confused and complained about its complexity. But to me, that was the […]
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Teaching Vocabulary
For a lot of students, I think the hardest thing about science is the vocabulary or the language scientists use in scientific papers, textbooks, or other teaching materials. Hypothesis? Endoplasmic Reticulum? Nucleolus vs Nucleus vs Nucleoid? Chromosome vs Chromatin vs Chromatid? It can be very hard for students to get these words straight. Why […]
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Teaching about Karyotypes and Chromosomes
My students have always been fascinated with karyotypes. I usually teach about karyotypes right after long unit on cellular respiration and photosynthesis, right before I get into mitosis and meiosis. Students often have a lot of misconceptions about chromosomes and karyotypes. Here are a few web resources and teaching ideas you can use when teaching […]
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Guest Blog Post: Teaching Heredity in Elementary School – Minds In Bloom from Rachel Lynette!
Rachel Lynette from Minds in Bloom invited me to write about teaching heredity in elementary school and I was so excited! Here is the link to her fantastic blog and my blog post! Check it out and download my free resource for elementary school teachers!
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Modeling Nucleic Acids with Pipe Cleaners, Beads, and Paper Clips
A while ago, I brainstormed and came up with some bead and pipe cleaner activities to help my students model proteins, carbohydrates, and lipid molecules. For a year or two, I’ve been trying to figure out how to best show students what monomers are, what polymers are, and why they are important. After all, they […]