(Central) Dog-ma Disease Detectives Activity

Recap from PDP/X-SLT March 2008; revised 5 May 2008

DOG-MA DISEASE DETECTIVES

Design Team: Tiffani Quan (DTL), Frank Black, Patrick Yuh

Design Team Facilitator & Teaching Consultant: Lisa Hunter

Audience:

MARC/MBRS/CAMP summer institute @ UCSC - June 30th to July 3rd

~15 junior level undergraduate students majoring in Molecular, Cell & Developmental Biology (MCD), Biochemistry (BMB), Chemistry or Biomolecular Engineering (BME)

prior knowledge: organic chemistry, introductory biology series (20s)

under-represented in sciences

Goals:

1 - develop accurate understanding of central dogma (DNA → RNA → protein) by using evidence and experimental results

2 - using experimental evidence to explain interpretations and hypotheses when communicating orally, in presentations and in writing

3 - be able to synthesize results from multiple experiments to formulate a “big picture”

4 - develop a testable hypothesis based upon empirical evidence and use it to make predictions

5 - students will gain exposure to experimental results obtained from actual techniques used by scientists to bridge their textbook and lecture knowledge to a more practical/applied lab setting

Activity description: ItalicText(rationale)ItalicText

Introduce the disease situation (no more than 15min)

- transition into techniques?

- brainstorm about cell components that can cause disease

(beginning of ownership by choosing areas of study)

3 Starter stations (1hr total) - groups 1 and 2 will swap halfway thru group 3’s time

1 - DNA: agarose gels, spec (15min)

2 - RNA: array data, spec (15min)

3 - protein: gel set up, stained gel, spec (absorbance and activity) (30min)

(assess prior knowledge of material, techniques; goal #5)

Data collection in small groups at the starter stations

- set up 2 variables (X & Y)

- each small group will collect data on only X or Y

Pair discussions within X and Y (15min discussion time, 5min poster prep)

- discussion, data analysis

- relationship between DNA, RNA, and protein?

- poster prep

(informal communication; start to develop a community; goal #1 & #2)

X and Y group discussion (no more than 15min)

- share out with informal posters (giant post-its) to the rest of their group (X or Y)

- form a group model

(goal #1 & #2)

Big group discussion (10min)

- compare/share models

- discuss how different data may suggest different models?

(goal #3)

~ break ~

Split into X and Y

- inform students which of their samples have the disease

Pair discussions within X and Y (5min)

- what about DNA, RNA, and/or protein causes disease?

- form a hypothesis

(goal #4)

X and Y group discussion (10min)

- share out hypotheses (goal #2)

Jigsaw X and Y groups into new groups of 4 students (students should not be the partners from the first part of the activity) (10min discussion, 5min presentation prep)

- discussion

- new model for why DNA, RNA, protein can cause disease

(goal #2, #3 & #4)

Big group discussion (10min)

- share out new models (goal #2)

Synthesis (10 min)

Things to work on for next time:

- what disease are we going to use? real or fictional? optical related?

- what protein can we use that has an easy functional/activity assay?

- Patrick: sketch out 10 sample dogs for DNA, RNA, and protein levels

- decide on leaders for each starter

- decide on leaders for group X, group Y and the intro/synthesis