DNA (EN)

Goal
The first activity is an introductory game through which the uniqueness of every person is illustrated.

What do you need?

• Space where children can move freely
• Questions about traits of students

Duration
20 minutes, discuss in class.

Game
All children stand up. After that, the teacher names a couple of characteristics. If a child has a certain characteristic, they will separate themselves from the group. Eventually, all children stand in a separate area. In short: every human has a unique set of characteristics.

Overview of possible questions for the teacher:

• Are you a boy or a girl?
  – Example assignment: all girls go left.
• Are you left- or right-handed?
• Can you roll your tongue? Yes or no?
• Are your ear lobes attached to your head or partially loose?
• Do you have curls or straight hair (naturally)?
• Do you have dimples in your cheeks?
• Cross your arms. Which arm is folded over the other? Right or left?
• Can you make a V with your fingers (demonstrate)?
• Does your hairline converge to a point on your forehead in the shape of a V?
• Do you have a dimple in your chin? Yes or no?
• Embrace your hands. Which thumb is on top? The left thumb or the right?
• What is your original hair color? Light or dark?

Follow-up activity: Group discussions
Through the game ‘Everyone is unique’ a group discussion can take place. The central question is: What does this game say about us? It can happen that children, despite the questions, still stand together. In the group discussion, it can be discussed further. How can it be that these children kept on standing together? What does that say about their characteristics? What characteristics do they not have in common?

Watch the example of the exercise here [Only available in Dutch]

Goal
The children discover that certain characteristics occur more often in the family in comparison to other characteristics.

What do you need?

• Worksheet 1 – Unique characteristics
• Worksheet 2 – Who do you resemble most?

Duration
30 minutes, the children finish the worksheet at home.

Activity
Do you resemble your neighbor or your family?
If you look around you or if you played the game ‘Everyone is unique’, then you will realize how different you are compared to your friends when paying attention to just a few characteristics: you are unique!
Yet we all say sometimes: ‘I’ve got that from my father or my grandmother.’ You probably resemble your family more than your neighbor.

Strange family?
Below is a list with several characteristics. We will investigate whether these characteristics frequently occur in your family. Once filled in, you will see who of our family you resemble the most. In the first table, you will find an explanation of the characteristics.

Execution

• Choose at least 5 characteristics (possibly think of a characteristic of which you want to find out if it can be found in your family) and try to fill in as many characteristics of your brothers, sisters, grandpas, grandmas, and if you like, even your uncles, aunts, cousins’ characteristics. If needed, use pictures, call them, or send an e-mail. It’s not bad if you miss some information, but the more, the more fun.
• Fill in the second table for yourself and the rest of the family. This way you get a complete list of who has which characteristics or not.
• Circle everyone’s characteristic that is the same as yours (for instance: if you have black hair, then everyone with black hair gets a circle around the word ‘black’) and count the number of circled traits of every family member: the one with the most circles, resembles you the most.
• Who do you resemble most?

Goal
The child gets insight into the structure of DNA.

What do you need?

• Strips of paper
• Stickers in the colors green, red, blue, yellow
• Worksheet 3 – Unique characteristics with color code

Duration
30 minutes

Activity
To better understand how mistakes can occur during the copying of DNA, we will first see what the coding of information exactly looks like. For that purpose, we build a piece of our DNA on a stroke of paper, where the nucleotides are represented by four colors, in the form of stickers or circles.

We now give each characteristic from the introductory activity ‘Everyone is unique’ its own color code. For instance, left-handedness is green-red-blue. On the worksheet, you see what code belongs to which characteristic. This way you make the strip of DNA complete with your twelve characteristics from worksheet 2. Everyone makes their own unique array of 12 x 3 = 36 colored stickers like this.

Differentiation tip: You can choose to add new characteristics, but you can also let the children add their chosen characteristics from the activity ‘Who do you resemble most?’.

Example DNA-strip:

Watch the example of the exercise here [Only available in Dutch]

Goal
The children learn that every DNA strand is unique.

What do you need?

• DNA strands from the children of the class.

Duration
15 minutes

Activity
If every child has made a DNA strand, the DNA-who-is-it-game can be played. The teacher randomly picks one DNA strand from the class. All children stand up. Through the color code, the teacher reads the characteristics of the DNA strand aloud. If the teacher names a characteristic that a child does not have, the child will sit down. This is repeated until only one child remains because every DNA strand is unique.

Tip! To make it exciting, you can start by reading the DNA strand from the end. This way girls and boys are not separated from each other immediately.

Differentiation tip: You can choose to not read the characteristics yourself, but to let a child do it. This way the children get more insight into learning to read DNA.

Example

• It is a girl, so all the boys have to sit down.
  Because  = girl
• The person is right-handed, so all left-handed have to sit down.
  Because  = right
• The person we are searching for cannot roll his/her tongue. So, everyone who can roll their tongue has to sit down.
  Because  = no tongue roll
• The person we are searching for has blue eyes, everyone with brown eyes has to sit down.
  Because  = blue eyes.
• Etcetera.

Goal
The child learns that a DNA code exists out of two strands.

What do you need?

• Certain DNA strands from the activity ‘Make your own DNA’
• Stickers in the colors green, red, blue, and yellow

Duration
20 minutes

Activity
During this activity, the children are going to complete their own DNA code. They will do this by sticking the complementary colors under the colors that are already stuck on the strand. The agreement is that red belongs to green and yellow to blue. You are supposed to stick the two rows of stickers next to each other.

Example DNA strand from activity ‘Make your own DNA’

Goal
Children learn that mistakes can occur when DNA has to be copied under pressure.

What do you need?

• Strands of paper
• Stickers in the colors green, red, blue, and yellow

Duration
20 minutes

Activity
During this activity, we are again focusing on the copying process. In this activity, a time element is added in: the student that finishes first, has won. The element of time pressure shows that under pressure mistakes are made. Even the cell is under constant pressure. So, in these exercises we imitate the cell!

Children get the assignment to cut the complementary strands of their DNA code loose and glue both halves on a new broad strand.

The agreement from activity 4 ‘Complement DNA-strand’ stays:

After this, both halves are copied complementary:

Next, you can let the children check each other’s DNA strands. Are there any mistakes? And do those mistakes have a meaning: Is there now another characteristic in the code? This is also what happens to DNA in the cell: copying under pressure can lead to changes (mutations). These mutations can lead to a change in a characteristic, but also that you are born with a hereditary disease. Often these mistakes do not have any influence, because the part of the DNA where they arise is not used for the forming of characteristics.

Goal
The child learns that diseases can arise due to certain combinations in DNA.

What do you need?

• Worksheet 4 – Determine the disease
  Version 1 / Version 2
  Caution: There are two different versions of worksheet 4. Both versions lead to a different disease/condition.
• Worksheet 5 – Decoding disk
• PowerPoint – Explanation of decoding disk

Duration
30 minutes

Activity
The color code from activities 3 through 5 is now replaced by letters, following the scientific designation:
A (adenine)
C (cytosine)
G (guanine)
T (thymine)
For example, a single strand DNA can look like this: ACTGAGCTTGACCAT

To complement the single strand to a double there are again determined combinations:
A always gets a U attached
C always gets a G
G always gets a C
T always gets an A

This activity consists of different parts.

Part 1: Every group gets a sheet with a piece of the DNA code. The children have to complement the strand to a double strand, according to the determined letter combinations.

Part 2: Each three consecutive letters (codon) of the second strand forms a code for an amino acid. Children can look up these codes on the decoding disk (worksheet 5). They write down the letter of the blue ring on the worksheet. Do this for every codon. In this way, a string of 15 letters is created.
Caution: Do this by using the PowerPoint that shows how the decoding disc of worksheet 5 works.

Part 3: Children now have a string of 15 amino acids and those form a protein together. This protein is involved in the creation of a certain disease or condition.
Go to the laptop and fill your string of 15 letters (without gaps) into Google.

If you have done it right, Google will recognize the protein and lead you to a page where you can find which protein it is and what disease or condition is connected to it.

Answers:
The disease that belongs to the first DNA strand: Alzheimer
The disease that belongs to the second DNA strand: Parkinson

Goal
Children become aware of the fact that characteristics come from both parents.

What do you need?

• Build materials for the sweets
  (In the used example: marshmallows, skewers, lucifers, tumtums, sour rolls)
  Caution: this activity can be done with different (non-edible) materials.
• Strip with characteristics of father and mother (make different strokes, so children get multiple “babies”).
• Worksheet 6 – Parts and the possible characteristics of the candy animal

Duration
30 minutes

Activity
During this activity the children get the instructions to make a “baby candy animal” by using the blueprint from the mother- and father candy animal. To do this they get a strip with characteristics from the father and a strip with characteristics from the mother. The blueprint is made up of a series of characteristics. (It’s made up by the teacher.)

Example:
The characteristics made up by teachers are (see worksheet 6)

• The tail could be long or short;
• The eyes could be on the side or the front;
• The head could be angled or twisted;
• The body could be long or short;
• The legs could have different colors.

Blueprint father and mother:

By using the blueprint of the father and mother, the children have to base the characteristics of their baby candy animals on the characteristics of both parents.

Instructions:

• If both parents have the same characteristic, then the baby candy animal also gets this characteristic. So, if the father and mother both have a long tail (a long sour roll), then the baby gets it as well.
• If the parents have a different characteristic, the child can choose the characteristic.

Through this assignment, the children become aware of the fact that characteristics are derived from both parents. In addition, they learn that some characteristics win (are dominant).

Goal
Children learn to isolate DNA from their saliva by following a step-by-step experiment.

What do you need?

• Water
• Salt
• Dish soap
• 70% alcohol (can be bought at drugstore, keep cold until use)
• (Measuring) cup
• Glass/cup (see-through!)
• Freezer
• Teaspoon and tablespoon (possibly pipette)

Duration
20 minutes

Activity

1. Put as much salt into the water in the measuring cup until it does not dissolve anymore.
2. Take 3 tablespoons of salt water and put these in the cup.
3. Rinse your mouth with the salt water (do not swallow!).
4. Spit the water back into the cup.
5. Dip the back of the teaspoon in the dish soap.
6. Stir the salt water calmly.
7. Carefully put the alcohol into the cup with the teaspoon/pipette.
8. The alcohol will lie on the salt water.
9. Stop when you have a layer of about 1 cm or 0.39 inch.
10. Stir carefully with the spoon/stirrer through the alcohol.

There is now a sort of web of white strings: that is your DNA!

What happened?

• The buccal mucous cells in your mouth easily let go because of the salt water.
• The dish soap breaks down the cells.
• Because of the alcohol, the DNA sticks together.

Goal
Children learn to purify from a banana by following a step-by-step experiment.

What do you need?
For the class

• Mixer, kitchen machine or blender
• Freezer
• Worksheet 9 – Purify DNA from a banana

Per child

• Half a banana
• Ananas juice
• 100 ml cold water
• Half a coffee spoon of kitchen salt
• A coffee filter with a filter holder
• A test tube (a long, narrow, glass tube)
• A bit of dish soap
• 70% alcohol (can be bought at a drugstore, keep cold until use)
• A small wooden stick

Duration
30 minutes

Activity
In the step-by-step plan below, the contributions of the different ingredients are explained in bold.

STEP 1
Cut the banana into small pieces and put the pieces into a blender with 100 ml cold water and halve a coffee spoon of salt into the mixer/blender. Mix for 15 seconds with maximum power. You now have banana cell soup.
The salt later helps to solidify the DNA so you can remove it from the solution.

STEP 2
Filter the banana soup through the coffee filter and catch the juice in a test tube (about three fingers high).

STEP 3
Add a couple of droplets of dish soap and softly shake the test tube back and forth.
Through this, the cell membrane (the outside) and the cell core break down and the DNA, which was stored in the core, is released.

STEP 4
Add half a coffee spoon of ananas juice to the test tube. Again, softly shake for 5 minutes.
DNA is folded in the cell core around proteins that protect it. The enzyme from the ananas juice cuts the proteins into pieces but keeps the DNA intact so you can isolate it. If you stir too hard, you break the long DNA molecule into smaller pieces which makes it harder for you to see.

STEP 5
Now take the very cold alcohol from the freezer and add it carefully. Make sure that the alcohol softly runs down the side and that the volume in your test tube approximately doubles. After a few seconds a white snot forms on the dividing line between the juice and alcohol. Carefully stir with a wooden stick through the snot and wind it up…. The DNA of the banana.
DNA will go to the alcohol layer as white stringy goo because it feels the most pleasant there, chemically at least.

If you are going to work on a theme, it is good to read the guideline for inquiry-based learning first. Using the seven steps of inquiry-based learning, we will show you how to design a project in the classroom. In addition, you will also find tools in the guideline that help you to carry out the activities in the classroom.

• Guideline for inquiry-based learning