Teacher instructions:
This school group activity is aimed at students aged 12-18. It is designed to take 60-90 minutes. It consists of four parts:
- Kitchen genetics
- DNA bracelets
- DNA legos
- Dress like a scientist
Kitchen Genetics is an activity that involves students extracting DNA using common kitchen supplies. This activity requires a teacher to lead the activity. There is 1 handout for this activity. Download PDF
DNA Bracelets is an activity that involves students stringing beads with letters to encode a short sequence of animal DNA in a bracelet. After a short demonstration, students can do this activity independently. There are 7 handouts for this activity. Each student should pick one of the handouts and make a corresponding bracelet. They may keep the bracelet. Download PDFs:
DNA Legos is an activity that involves students working in pairs to build a DNA double helix using legos. After a short demonstration, students can do this activity independently. There is 1 handout for this activity. After completing the lego double helix, the students should return the legos so that another student may use them. Download PDF
Dress Like a Scientist is an activity that involves students dressing up in the Tyvek suits, masks, and gloves worn by scientists when they study ancient DNA. Students may take turns trying on the scientist uniform and taking pictures with their phones. Students may want to pose with their extracted DNA, DNA bracelet, or DNA lego double helix for the photo. After a short demonstration, students can do this activity indendently. There is 1 handout for this activity. Download PDF