March 6, 2011
Thank you to many of you for the kind birthday wishes!
Monday - Students were introduced to the inheritance of blood types after getting back their quizzes from Friday. It seemed as though most students picked this up pretty quickly! Afterwards, everyone had time to count the flies from the second generation of offspring in their vials and work on some problems. Homework was problems 1-7 on Problem Set 4.
Tuesday - I was home sick myself, so the students had classroom time to work on practice genetics problems. There was a great report from the substitute teacher. My classes are great this year - obviously the parents of my students are doing something right at home! I have not had a single complaint from a sub this year.
Wednesday - On Wednesday the students were introduced to something called the Hardy-Weinberg Theorem by having them taste some PTC paper. Ask your kids if they can explain the theorem to you, and if they can describe the taste of the PTC paper! Afterwards there was time to count flies and work on problems. Homework was problems 8-10 on Problem Set 4.
Thursday - My son woke me up at 5am with a fever and terrible cough/nasal congestion so I was home again. The students worked on some practice Hardy-Weinberg problems, as well as practice problems reviewing our other genetics topics. The sub's report again was great!
Friday - We checked the students' problems from Thursday, then had time to count flies and prepare for Monday's quiz. The fruit fly project report was explained to the students as well. The report must be typed, and is due at the beginning of the period on March 18th. One report will be turned in per lab team. It will NOT be accepted late for any reason, since two weeks notice was given and it is to be typed. Even if nobody from the group is in class, then somebody can e-mail it to me as an attachment by the time class begins on the 18th.
Upcoming Events
Monday - There is a quiz scheduled for Monday. It was originally scheduled for last week, but due to my absences and having to count flies, it was pushed back until Monday. After the quiz there will be time to count flies.
Tuesday - This will be a day for counting flies and working on the students' fruit fly reports.
Wednesday - This will be the students' last day to count flies from the second generation. We will learn about how two genes can be located on the same chromosome, and what impact that has on the ratios of different offspring expected to be produced by a cross. Afterwards there will be time to count flies. Problem Set 5 will be assigned for homework.
Thursday - Students will be introduced to a statistical tool called Chi-Square Analysis. This will be used by the students to analyze their data and see if it should be accepted or rejected. There will be practice problems assigned for homework. We will be doing a Chi-Square lab activity where we compare the expected numbers of M&M's of different colors in a bag of M&M's (using information provided by the Mars Candy Company) with the actual numbers of each color in a bag.
Friday - I will be lecturing on the inheritance of several different genetic diseases. We will be reviewing for our genetics test (which will be Tuesday the 15th and Wednesday the 16th).
Graba Geek of the Week
This week's Graba Geek of the Week is Amy Andersen. Amy not only earned a perfect score her genetics quiz last week, but she has also become a leader in identifying flies for her group - quite impressive!
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