Week 8

This week in lab we started with checking on our fast plants. They appeared to be worse condition than last week. It will be interesting to see what they will look like in the weeks ahead as the plant continues its life cycle. The main thing we learned about this week was mutations and how they impact proteins. Mutations are alternations in the DNA. The three types of mutations are substitution, insertion and deletion. We did a couple Mutation simulations online and completed the superhero mutation activity to learn more about how the effects of mutations. Mutations are mostly neutral, however, they can be harmful or beneficial for organisms. 


I was able to connect this information to what I already knew about adaptation and mutation and the value they can have to organisms evolving. However, I did not know about the encoding of DNA and the various proteins and codons. The simulations and superhero helped me understand the process and how even the smallest of changes can have an impact on the resulting DNA.

I am still wondering if there are any real life examples that we could connect this to. What are some examples of beneficial mutations. What are examples of harmful mutations? Would it be beneficial to bring real examples into the classroom or teach this through the hypothetical superhero activity like we did?

Comments

  1. Emily StultzMarch 8, 2023 at 11:21 AM

    Hi Matt,
    I liked how you described your fast plant, my group's plant is basically dead at this point. It'll be interesting to see if they dry out more or if they just shrivel up and the seeds fall off. I think that helpful mutations would be like when the eye color blue emerged from humans. This was due to a genetic mutation due to low lighting where the humans were at. A harmful one would be like genetic disorders that make life so much harder and painful.

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  2. Alicea UlrichMarch 8, 2023 at 11:38 AM

    Hi Matt! I really enjoyed reading your blog for this week! Our plant definitely was not fully dead, but it was dry as bones. I have very similar questions about real life examples, I am very shocked that I never learned about mutations being neutral because I always thought mutations were a negative thing.

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  3. Julia MikkelsenMarch 8, 2023 at 12:01 PM

    Hi Matt, our fast plant was also almost dead. I actually broke off one of the beans and opened it to find a bunch of seeds inside which was cool. I also agree that looking at some real life examples on mutations would be very helpful and make a lot more sense to me.

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