To Be or Not to Be, or to Be Something Else

Ever since Watson and Crick introduced that spiral shaped tinker toy they called the DNA model, scientists have been unraveling the mystery of life. This lesson is designed to serve as an introductory package for a cross curriculum unit on the science literacy of biotechnology.

To begin with maybe we should define the term Biotechnology. Bio simply means life and technology means to apply knowledge of something in a useful way. Therefore biotechnology is the application of the knowledge of living things in a way that is useful to society. Recently (in the last few decades) science has begun to unravel the mysteries of life and now we are beginning to see some wonderful and worrisome applications of that knowledge.

There are 4 subunits to this lesson, which involve web-based resources to complete. They are:

Where in the world is Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid

What is all this cloning business about?

Before we get started, each of you will be given a questionnaire or pretest to gage your prior literacy of this subject matter. After submitting the pretest continue on through the four subunits below.

Part 1

Where in the world is Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid?

It is mentioned in the news almost every day now. They call it the code of life, the instructional manual for all life. Where is it? What is it? It is simply a chemical that is found in every one of your cells. You inherited one half of it from your mother’s egg and the other half from your father’s sperm. To find out more click here and continue to click the next button to you come to the end. Then return to this page.

Part 2

What is all this cloning business about?

Cloning simply implies using the DNA from a cell (other than an egg of sperm cell which only has one half of the DNA) and using it to produce the same whole organism again. Click here to simulate the cloning of Dolly the sheep to get a better understanding of this process. At the end of the simulation click on the Reaction tab at the top of the page and read through the misconceptions. Spend some time looking over some of the other things this site has to offer before returning to this page. You might even want to respond to the poll on human cloning.

Part 3

Bioethics 101

Stem cells are precursor cells that in some instances can be induced to become any cell a researcher desires. Won’t it be great when we can take a stem cell and grow you a new liver if yours is diseased? However, currently human embryos are the desired source for stem cells, and embryonic stem cells research is controversial. Get involved in the different viewpoints on this issue with this group project called WebQuest. Click here to access the WebQuest page and go to the Cloning WebQuest. There are other controversial issues like genetically modified food and human cloning that we can explore later.

Part 4

Getting Technical

This page is just an introduction to get you ready for some of the activities we will be doing in class. You might be wondering how scientists work with this substance called DNA. One thing that is done is to fingerprint the DNA. This really has nothing to do with your fingerprint, but it gives us a picture of your DNA, and no ones picture looks the same. Therefore like a fingerprint it can be used to identify you. DNA evidence is being used in paternity suits, forensics, and anthropology. Click here for a video presentation of the steps involved in this technique. Later you will be able to perform your own DNA electrophoresis.

Post Test

Now lets see if these short lessons have increased you biotechnology literacy. Please click on the Post Test link and submit the questionnaire again. Remember there is a lot more exciting things to discuss about this fascinating subject so stayed tuned.