Reference Materials
Ask the Expert
Below are a few sites that list scientists and professionals that voluntarily respond to
students' questions. Remember, some experts receive many of the same questions and respond
to only 2 of 40 inquiries and direct the other inquiries to a list of Frequently Asked
Questions (FAQ). Therefore, please refer to the FAQs before sending an e-mail.
Animations
- Hungarian Flash Animation- Challenge yourself to understand
how this animation works and what it means, even if you do not know Hungarian. Courtesy of
http://biologia.sulinet.hu.
- Natural Selection Animation -
Courtesy of Sulinet. It is evolution on the screen. There are
a hundred of the animals, and they have three characteristics: red, blue and green which determine their color. You can
set the environment with the sliders. When you start the process with the speed slider, first only that 50 survives of
them which are closest to the color of the background (which are most adapted to the environment). Then each survivor
will have a child, the characteristics of the child differ a little from that of the parent by a random amount. Again
only that half population survives which is adapted the most and so on. You can change the environment anytime you want.
- Independent Assortment -
Courtesy of Sulinet. Click on the
question mark for an explanation of what is happening. Select one animal and
a circle will appear around it. Then select "Father" or "Mother" and click "X"
and the cross will be made. Percentages will appear to the right for each
phenotype. Can you figure out which trait is dominant?
Games
- iDNAfication- Teaches students to use biology and molecular biology techniques (including DNA fingerprinting)
to solve forensics mysteries. Teachers may customize the game to omit some modules and to create
a list of suspects that includes the students.
- Origin: Unknown: Teaches students and science educators how to utilize WWW-based Bioinformatics tools in the analysis of biological macro-molecular sequence data.
- Outbreak! Teaches students the clinical and diagnostic methodologies, and skills used in microbiology.
Genetics background
Problems and Activities
Color Blindness
Hardy-Weinberg Links
Related Information
Current issues in genetics and evolution
These articles provide some background on current issues in fields related to genetics and evolution and can be used as part of a class discussion or an extension reading for interested students.
Science Friday: Produced through NPR has had a month of great shows on genetics.
At the above websites you can read more topic details and you should be able to download and play those broadcasts in the classroom with a computer and some small speakers. This is a great resource to current and engaging news that you can use in your classroom!
Intelligent Design
Genetics
Stem cell research
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