human anatomy: DNA and GENES

When I told BC I had to walk down to 7/11 to get gummy bears for science he mused, "Of course you do, that makes total sense." But it does make sense.  Gummies are a perfect way to explore a few beginning principles of genetics. 

  

Gummy Bear Genetics Activity:

Start by drawing a 3 generation pedigree diagram (grandparents, parents, and children). Each gummy bear will represent a single chromosome. Since chromosomes come in pairs each family member needs 2 bears. 

The different colors of bears represent the variations of genes within chromosomes: traits.

{Remeber: It goes Cell>Nucleus>Chromosomes. And Chromosomes are made up of tight coils of DNA. Genes are short sections of DNA that give instructions to each cell to do different things.}

Using the gummy bear chromosomes create different combinations of the color traits passing through the Family. See how many different genetic outcomes you can create using 3 different colors. Try it with more. Hello, added math fun!  

Set up genetic problems to solve by filling in only some of the pairs of chromosomes and have the other person fill in the rest to solve the chart. 

Or fill in the only the children (progeny) and ask: 

Is this possible, if not why not, and if so how- show it?  

You can make this activity as easy or as complex as you would like. One way to increase the difficulty is to add more traits. To do this add multiple colors to each chromosome by cutting the bears in half and mix-matching the colors (ie red bear head on a yellow bear butt).

Another way would be to add more generations and additional colors traits with each new coupling as unrelated people bring new genetics into the family.

Even further advanced, adding gene superiority (and following the rules of). Such as making "red-head-ed-ness" in gummy bears is dominant to "yellow-head-ed-ness" or "green-butt-ed-ness" is dominant to "clear-butt-ed-ness" and solve for expressions of dominant and recessive traits.       

Anyway you want to play it, tons of sweet (horrible pun, right?!) science fun!

fraction action

I’ve “talked" about the differences between real life math and book math before.  Turns out it’s not just me who is seeing the significant differences between them.  There is a wave starting out there somewhere in the scientific community to eliminate math as a required subject and instead offer it as an elective where the material covered is more math games than math “work”.

The idea is that the math, as it is being taught, is so far out of one's daily reality, so sterilized for mass consumption that is it isn’t teaching our kids workable, usable real life math anymore. Beach works every day with REAL money, fractions, measurements, equivalents, and time/elapsed time.  She doesn’t need a workbook of story problems to understand how math works out in the world.     

In school, there isn’t enough hands-on exploration or real-life practice and applications. Too much memorization and not enough messy trial and error. The end result is the learning isn’t deep enough. The students come away knowing a thin layer of rules or facts that if not practiced will slowly erode over time. It also makes math "not fun".  Really?! Math is a ton of fun!!! AND it sets kids up to fail.  They think they aren't good at math. Nope, we as a "system" aren't good at teaching it.

When we decided to do a course on Algebra she had a ton of fun working the “puzzles” as she called them.  She never allowed me to give her rules to blindly follow. I had to prove each one to her.  Then she had to prove them to herself before she would use them. 

In our push to finish The 6^th Grade, we needed to get back to fractions.  Why yes, I do teach Algebra before adding and subtracting, multiplying and dividing fractions.  Guess what? It was awesome because now she uses the tools she gained in Algebra to solve fractions.  

Back to the point. What I realized, was just like Algebra, I couldn’t simply give her the rules. Telling Beach, “Crisscross Applesauce” I might as well go outside and smash my head into a brick wall! “But why?” “That’s the rule.” “Why?” “Because, it’s how it works.” “But why does it work?” ~i don't know, it just does...

I realized there was only one way to do this we were going to have to play around with fractions until the rules showed themselves to her. It shouldn't be too long she already does conversions and addition of all sorts of fractions in real life. (There is that word again, REAL).  So I threw out the fractions workbook and began looking for math games with fractions or those that I could adapt to using fractions. Then we pulled out the fraction circles and we got down to play, I mean work, no play. Here is one of the games we played yesterday.

A fun upgrade on the card game WAR: Using a deck of cards with the face cards removed and something to act as a fraction line you can play Fraction War. The players must decide which one has the larger fraction based on the 4 cards played (2 cards each, 1 numerator & 1 denominator). The winner gets to keep all the cards. The player with most cards at the end wins.

With the goal of fostering a deeper understanding of what is going on, we added mathematical proofs to the game. Using the fraction circles each player had to prove the value of their fraction.

Next to make it more challenging; add a second deck of cards (face cards removed) and deal each player 2 fractions (4 cards to each) and add in a mathematical operation (addition, subtraction, multiplication or division) before comparing the value against the other player's cards. Same rules apply the player with the larger sum/product wins the cards and the player with the most cards at the end wins the game.

the collectors

problem solver

This morning Beach was downstairs at the kitchen sliders working on a few more math problems. It wasn't my idea. 

I was upstairs having a bad day and waiting for the kids to call with an update on Baby J's condition. 

It was all her. A kid doing what kids do, wanting to play more of that fun game from yesterday. You know that fun math game with exponents.  

She picked the problems she wanted to do and ignored the ones she thought looked boring.  

When I came down for more coffee she asked me to check them against the answers in the back of the book. 

There was one she simply got wrong. I have no idea what went south because most of her math in her head.  But there were 2 she got wrong because she used the wrong power some number to the power of 4 instead of 3 or something to the power of 5 instead of 4.

She took her mistakes well, which isn't always the case. Then smiling she said, "Well if the answer is wrong, let's just fix the problem." 

And she proceeded to change the powers in the original problem to fit her answers. "Now they are both right."

Yes, I suppose they are.   

  

math lab, a window into exponents

whiteboard markers + the kitchen slider doors = 

one happy problem solver