Mindful Ramblings

Sorry, no microscope this week!  But we did have quite a bit of fun!   At home we enjoyed Experiment 5.2 on Osmosis!  Watching osmosis in action was very interesting as we learned about semi-permiable membranes using eggs. 

During our Co-Op session, we completed Experiment 5.3, The Fragility of an Enzyme.  It answered an age old question for me!  I remember when I was young, asking my mom to add some pineapple to the jello she was making.  She told me you couldn’t put fresh pineapple in jello because it wouldn’t set up! 

I always wondered why, until Experiment 5.3!!   It was great doing an experiment in the kitchen, and quite nice to be able to eat your experiment when you’re done…. 

While our jello experiment was setting up completing it’s enzymatic breakdown, we headed out to the pool deck to work on our edible DNA molecules.  Who knew DNA could be so fun?  I, for one, had no idea DNA could have so much sugar!   (The Edible DNA project is courtesy of The University of Utah.)  You can, indeed, have your DNA and eat it too!  It seemed to be our day for edible experiments!  It was good we had some extra Twizzlers, because the group felt it would be wrong to build a molecule with a crooked backbone.  Any “imperfect” backbones had to be sacrificed for the sake of the perfect molecule! 

The students were very industrious, carefully joining pairs of Adenine and Thymine, and Cytosine and Guanine to form the perfect double helix!   The whole project took about half an hour to complete. 

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The modules of this course can be very intense because of all the vocabulary, so it’s always a good idea to have some fun while you’re learning, even if you are a High School student!   Since Experiment 5.3 was not yet ready to be evaluated, we all agreed we should go for a swim study the vocabulary terms for the test.  

To review the 25 new terms for Module 5, we played a little game…in the pool of course!    The game is called The Underwater Vocabulary Game, but may more accurately be named “Vocabulary Splash”, or even “Oh No, The Skimmer Ate Polysaccharides!”   (Note: Click the title to get a copy of the rules of play!)

And we’re on to Module 6!