Katelyn Tipton Science Methods Blog

 This week I was sick, so I did not attend lab. In place of my lab photos, here's one of my puppy, Jay. In lecture this week, I learned about the causes of natural selection - mutation, adaptation, competition, chance events, and other environmental factors. We also got to play around with simulators with different mutated genes that led to different traits being present in populations of frogs and moths.  I already knew most of what we learned about natural selection, but it was a nice refresher. I knew what natural selection is and how it works, but seeing the causes divided into 5 groups was helpful for me to remember them. Doing the simulations was also helpful in visualizing what natural selection actually looks like and how predators and environment can impact how a species looks.  I would definitely use the simulations in my future classroom. I think they're both great hands-on activities for students to do that don't require you to spend money on supplies or do mu...

This week, we learned about DNA, RNA, mRNA, and tRNA and all of their purposes. We learned the structure of DNA and created models of it using Twizzlers and Dots. We also checked in on our fast plants, which have started to form seed pods, and our caterpillars, which have turned into butterflies. We also learned about genes and how babies get their genes from their parents and did the baby lab.  I already knew about DNA and RNA, but this was a nice refresher on their structures and purposes. I knew of mRNA and tRNA, but I wasn't sure what they exactly did, so this lab was helpful in clarifying that for me. I also already knew about dominant and recessive genes and how they are expressed. I think it would be interesting to talk more about how this works with blood types and skin color, which are determined by multiple genes.  I think the DNA modeling activity we did was really fun and engaging, so I would definitely use that in my future classroom/teaching. I think I would modi...