Electrophoresis and the Relationships and Biodiversity Lab for the Regents Exam

I had just begun our unit on Genetics, Biotechnology, and Decision Making in Honors Biology when school closed and we transitioned to home learning via Zoom. The labs I do for this unit did not transition well to having students complete them at home.

As we got closer to the time that we would have gone over electrophoresis and done the Relationships and Biodiversity Lab (required to be completed for the New York Living Environment Regents Exam) I felt like I needed to put something together so that my students could get an idea of how electrophoresis works and to somehow do the lab. Of course, since then the June Regents exam has been canceled, but I actually like this lab and am glad my students had a chance to go through it.

The first activity that we did was designed to give them a "hands-on" feel for electrophoresis. I lead them through it with this google slides show. After students made their paper DNA sequence and cut them with their restriction enzyme, I asked students to count their base pairs and use the annotate feature in zoom to draw their DNA bands where they belong. Everyone had their initials over one of the wells, so they knew where to draw their bands. I loved how the electrophoresis gel looked when they finished annotating.

The next day we tackled the Relationships and Biodiversity Lab. Students had access to the NY lab in google doc format through Google Classroom and I also shared this Google Slides presentation with them to walk them through each of the 7 tests on the lab. Some of the slides I copied from other teachers' presentations, I found a video on YouTube of a teacher explaining the paper chromatography test, and one day that I was allowed into the building for 15 minutes, I made a video of the enzyme test.

Students asked plenty of questions, but once they were in their breakout rooms, they got to work. I popped into the rooms to check on them and answered a few more questions, mainly about how to mark the DNA bands in the lab. They did a great job with them. Of course, it wasn't as fun as doing it in person, but I think students got a picture of the concepts that the lab hits on.

Using NOVA Labs Evolution Lab

Last week in Analytical Biology (Honors Bio), we began our Comparative Reproduction Unit. To get us doing some comparing, we did Mission 1 and Mission 2 of the NOVA Labs Evolution Lab. After watching a brief video and answering a few questions, students are off to building phylogenetic trees based on similarities and differences between different organisms.

The kids loved it, as it is set up more like a game than studying. I like that you can try out your tree and if it doesn't work (if dots fall off of the tree), you can readjust and try again. You can also click on the magnifying glass icon to get more information about the organisms you are trying to compare. This information is helpful for knowing how to put the tree together.

Although I only asked them to complete the first two missions, many students went on to the other missions--even though they covered topics that we haven't seen yet, namely DNA similarities to build trees. One student asked permission if she could complete all of the missions on her own. Of course!

One of the relationships they were surprised about was that a fungus was more closely related to animals than to plants. It led to some discussions about heterotrophs and autotrophs.

I set up a classroom in mypbslearningmedia.org and then could push out the assignment to my students through Google Classroom. The process isn't perfectly smooth, but all of my students found their way into the missions without too much help, and several students helped others to navigate their way in.

As students get further into the trees, they get more complicated. There is certainly some frustration as the trees get more difficult, but one student will figure it out and their celebration of figuring it out tends to encourage others to press on.

There are questions throughout to keep students focused on the learning that's happening. it also gives them an introduction to cladograms that they will have to interpret on the Regents exam in June, so that's another plus for this activity.

Regents Review with Locked Boxes

As we were reviewing for the Living Environment Regents exam at the end of the year in Analytical Biology, I was trying to keep it interesting. To help students review the concepts behind the four required labs for the exam, I decided to put together a Breakout that required students to recall these lab ideas.

There were diagrams to reference around the room, a directional maze, a story involving colors of indicators, a cladogram to interpret, and diagrams of the beaks of finches.

This gave students a fun way to be reminded of these key labs that we had done through the lab, with a little fun competition thrown in. The competition was primarily against the clock, but since they were divided into three teams, they were also hoping to be the first team to break their reward out.

Here's the link to all of the files for the breakout:
Diagrams to put around the room
Directional Maze
LE Regents Review Breakout
Teacher Directions