Genetic Disorder Research Projects

"Disorder" for lack of a better term. It's a little difficult to know exactly what to call the various genetic "abnormalities" (itself a loaded term), which range from obvious diseases like Cystic Fibrosis to the chromosomal disorders such as Down Syndrome to multi-factorial disorders such as diabetes & cancer that sometimes depend to a certain extent on enviromental interactions.

I assigned students to do a long-term investigation of one disorder. I have tried to limit them to the "simpler" disorders involving single genes or chromosomal abnormalities.

Timing is a challenge with long-term studies. If you assign the project too early, the students may not be able to make any sense of what they read. Assign it too late, and the chance to integrate their questions into the curriculum vanish. Since I had broken up my curriculum into non-linear chunks, I assigned the topic a month ago when we were discussing reproduction & Mendelian heredity. I hope to have the projects finished in the coming weeks as we study DNA, genetics & human reproduction.

I'm posting below the list of questions I provided students to help guide their research. They are supposed to come back from the holiday break with most of these questions answered.

Genetic Disease Study for Regents Biology Classes

Answer the following questions in your own words. Answer each question in a short paragraph if possible. You may want to write the question on one side of an index card, with the answer on the opposite side.

• What is the name of your genetic disorder?
• What are the causes of the genetic disorder?
• What is the effect of the genetic disorder on the body – at the cellular level and at the “organismic” level (how does it affect the whole body, what are the symptoms)?
• How does a “healthy” gene differ from a gene that causes the disorder?
• Have scientists identified the gene or genes that cause the problem? Where are the genes located? (Which chromosome? Include karyotype in your report to show location.)
• How common is the disorder in the general population?
• Does the disorder affect some population groups more than others?
• Is the disorder more common in some parts of the world than others?
  Is the disorder inherited? If so, is it dominant or recesive? Or is it more complicated than that?
• If your disease is a chromosomal abnormality, like Down Syndrome, how does that chromosomal abnormality occur? Use pictures to show how it happens.
• What kind of life does a person with the disorder lead?
• Are there any treatments for the disorder?
• Is there any other interesting information you found that you would like to add?

Remember, eventually your paper will need to discuss the relationship between DNA, genes, & proteins. So save any information you find about that, even if it doesn’t make sense right now.

I will create a simple rubric and post later.

The Cost of Teaching

My wife walks into my "office" and says I look like Scrooge poring over receipts on Christmas Eve. That's pretty ironic since I'm actually compiling a list of materials I've purchased this year for teaching - my hard earned money used to subsidize the NYC school system. If you added up the money teachers donate to their classrooms and the money parents donate for their children's classrooms (I have 2 children in public school and there are constant requests for materials/supplies/money in one form or another) the amount would probably equal what many other medium-sized districts in the US spend outright on education:

Let's see, approximately 100,000 teachers, and I'm guessing low at an average of $250 per teacher = $25,000,000 additional dollars donated by employees of the system.

Then let's add in the parent donations - including "candy sales" and other donations disguised as purchases (there's a ridiculous mark-up on fund-raising sales). There are approximately 1,000,000 school children in NYC. Based on my expenditures, knowing what goes on where I teach, and knowing what happens in other schools around the city, I would suggest an average of "only" about $50 per child, city-wide. That's another $50,000,000 in donations from parents to the system.

Grand Total: $75,000,000

I'm way too busy to seriously research these numbers, but I certainly invite anyone else to refute my calculations with real data.

As for my personal expenditures, so far I'm up to $542.57, just based on receipts that I can find quickly. You can subtract $200.00 for "teachers' choice" that we are reimbursed. So out of my pocket would be $342.57 and there is a lot more left of this school year. It doesn't include some purchases for which I haven't found receipts yet. It also doesn't include a lot of nickel-&-dime purchases that I make in cash periodically. Most of the items included are basic supplies that schools should provide for teachers as a matter of course - papers, photocopies, pencils, pens, markers, bulletin board supplies, glue sticks, etc. Some items are for science labs - either equipment that isn't available in the school or consumable materials. I will keep this list updated throughout the year and see where things stand in June.

Science Writing

I have to admit I'm not much of a reader. I subscribe to a couple of magazines, I read selected articles in the newspapers - mostly online versions and way more sports than I should - but rarely do I pick up a book and read it cover to cover, and even more rarely a work of fiction.

I have lots of excuses. I have twin boys (6 years old) so I don't have many care-free weekend days to lounge around reading. I spend way too much time planning for school, which is probably true of most teachers, especially science teachers, so when I do read it's usually researching some topic I'm teaching at the moment. I walk to work, so there's no morning/afternoon subway commute where I could get in an extended reading period. But mostly I just have trouble sustaining the effort needed to plough through a real book.

When I read, it's almost always short non-fiction pieces. And if I can combine reading for pleasure and work at the same time, all the better. I'm sure a lot of people become English teachers so they can be paid to read literature: For me that would just be torture! (How I ever got a Masters in German Literature I'll never know. If reading fiction in English is drudgery, imagine the pain of 2+ years reading fiction in another language - but I digress).

So recently I stumbled on a title that seemed to be made for me. "The Best American Science Writing: 2004." (See excerpts at Amazon.com) A collection of science articles written for various publications including the New Yorker, Vanity Fair, Wired, Harper, NY Times, Discover, and on & on. These kinds of articles are where you can get interesting tidbits to throw into your lessons that make science discussions lively & interesting. Listen to this opening to the lead article in the book:

The television in the dead man's room stays on all night. Right now the program is Shipmates, a reality-dating drama that's barely audible over the hiss of the ventilator. It's 4 AM, and I've been here for six hours, sitting in the corner while three nurses fuss intermittently over a set of intravenous drips. They're worried about the dead man's health.

Great story, interesting tidbit about what happens to the individual cells of the body after brain death:

In the moments after death, a cascade of changes sweeps over the body. Potassium diminishes and salt accumulates, drawing fluid into cells. Sugar builds up in the blood. With the pituitary system offline, the heart fills with lactic acid like the muscles of an exhausted runner. Free radicals circulate unchecked and disrupt other cells, in effect causing the body to rust. The process quickly becomes irreversible. As cell membranes become porous, a "death gene" is activated and damaged cells begin to self-destruct. All this happens in minutes.

I'm enjoying the stories so far, and looking for the time to read more of them!

Curriculum Revision 1.2

After struggling through cell processes and promising students that diffusion, osmosis, and active transport would be really interesting and important when we get to study the human body, I realized I could not put off that unit till the end of the year.

It just makes no sense to me to teach these cell biology topics out of context. I still believe in teaching abstract fundamental concepts on a need to know basis. Why do textbooks insist on presenting a whole separate unit on cell processes? I will cover enzymes when we get into digestion, where enzymes play an obvious and key role. DNA replication and synthesis will go with reproduction. Of course diffusion, osmosis, and cell transport are part of just about any human body function we might want to discuss.

This puts me again in the difficult situation of having to "cut & paste" from various chapters in the book, but I just cannot fathom right now trying to teach enzymes the way it is presented in the books.

On another level, it probably makes more sense to cover human body in winter, since our "subject" is right there in the classroom. No need to go on a field trip to see one or think about how things work. Other concepts that I had planned for this winter are probably better covered in spring when we can get out of the classroom - ecology in the parks, evolution at the Museum of Natural History (I'm hoping that my principal will allow field trips again by then!).

New York Hall of Science & Field Trips

In my 3 years as a staff developer at the district office, we were constantly looking for ways to encourage greater use of science institutions at our disposal in New York City. We've got the Museum of Natural History, which is a great resource for those who can get there easily - a single visit just doesn't cut it. It's my favorite since I'm partial to biology & geology anyway, and it's easy for me to get to. We've also got the NY Hall of Science (more below), parks and environmental study centers, zoos and botanical gardens - all within relatively easy reach.

I personally love field trips with my students. I find that most students are quite well behaved, that they are greatly benefited by getting out of the neighborhood and it allows students and teachers to interact in a much more relaxed atmosphere. It often improves relations with students back in the classroom. They always remember the field trips, and if done properly they even engage in formal learning activities without the usual complaints - in fact, they will enjoy the trip more if there's some structured activity like a worksheet or other written assignment where they have to focus on some aspect of the experience.

On Friday I took my class (along with 3 other teachers and 2 other classes) to the NY Hall of Science in Queens. For us in Upper Manhattan, this is a bit too far to travel, at least by public transportation. It was about 1.5 hours in both directions and we didn't leave the school until 9:00. That left us about 2 hours in the Hall, including check-in and lunch. It's a great setting for students. A relatively small space, very open, tons of hands-on activities that are well made - plenty of "wow! that's cool" exhibits to keep the kids enthusiastic. The other great thing about the Hall is that they have lots of "explainers" lurking around to interact with the students. Students kept themselves engaged and were pretty free to roam the exhibits in plain sight of teachers or other adults. This is quite a contrast to the Museum of Natural History, which is a very large, stuffy, don't-touch-anything kind of place where security is constantly scolding someone for not being supervised or touching something or leaning against something, etc. Not really a good place for large groups.

In spite of the distance, I would still take my other classes to the hall if I could. My school, unfortunately, sees field trips as little more than a waste of instructional time annoyance. Requests for field trips are met with skepticism, and I almost always leave the principal's office after my request feeling guilty and apologizing profusely for making the request. In this instance, the principal reluctantly allowed the trip but was emphatic that there would be no more field trips until after the standardized tests. I could go off now on NCLB, but frankly there's always been an anti-field trip bias at the school. It just shouldn't be that way. I know other schools actively encourage field trips and recognize their value. There should be a distinction made between an academic activity and a trip to the theater to see The SpongeBob Squarepants Movie, for example.

As for my regents biology connection, I had hoped to spend some time on the Marvelous Molecules - a gigantic sugar molecule model and other biochemical concepts. But our schedule in the museum was cut short by the long travel time.

Absolute Beginner

It's moments like these when I feel totally incompetent. I've been teaching 13 years now, and yet here I am, fumbling around trying to find my way through a science curriculum like any other first year teacher. I'm spending too much time on certain topics but still finding too many of my students aren't keeping up. I'm rushing topics that should be prior knowledge but about which my students are understandably clueless - basic chemistry concepts, e.g.

As I mentioned in an earlier post I've been struggling with sequencing and pace pretty much from the beginning. This being an "accelerated" class for 8th graders in some ways complicates things, since I know that my students don't have the background knowledge that would be expected in a 9th grader, but from what I've heard from other high school teachers, large numbers of 9th graders aren't exactly prepared either. So I would likely be running into many of the same issues in another setting.

This past week I tried to cover 6 weeks of grade 8 chemistry in one week. A lot of lectures, discussions, visualizations, but not much in the way of activities. I figure we will continue using the vocabulary in studying cell processes over the next few weeks and indeed throughout the rest of the course, so a crash course was in order. I hope that with repeated exposure to the concepts in the context of cell biology, ecology, and human biology it will begin to make sense at some point.

As an example, we just set up an experiment looking at osmosis in chicken eggs. It's an old activity involving vinegar to dissolve the shell, then soaking in distilled water or corn syrup and observing changes in the mass of the egg as water diffuses into or out of the shell respectively (here's a good write up of the experiment in PDF from Power to Learn - there are lots of versions online so I won't attempt to recreate another one here). This is a rich activity. We discussed what an egg is (review from previous lessons where we talked about sperm & egg - sexual reproduction), special features of the chicken egg, organic compounds found in eggs (proteins, lipids, carbs, nucleic acids). Next we will consider the chemical reactions that dissolved the shell in vinegar and the diffusion of water molecules across the semi-permeable membrane. Along the way we will have to review or learn from scratch simple solution chemistry - solute, solvent, concentration, etc. On top of all that, we will perform the activity as a controlled experiment and discuss variables, controls, construct tables & graphs, analyze data.

A former colleague who is now a principal argues that living environment teachers should try to teach a few topics and teach them well. If students pass the exam with a 65 then that's sufficient. (Addendum: The curriculum is simply too broad to hope that you can meaningfully cover every topic that might appear on the test). I'm OK with the idea of teaching fewer formal topics and teaching them well - in fact, if the units are as rich as the egg unit, then the students may come out understanding significantly more, but the 65 doesn't sit with me. Especially with my 8th graders, where I'm afraid if they don't do better than that the schools may find a way to reject their middle school regents course and require them to take it all over again in high school. I hope I am teaching at least as well as they can expect to be taught in a high school - otherwise what's the point?

I really like teaching this curriculum. I'm enjoying the noticeable maturation of my grade 8 students, all the more obvious since I'm teaching a 7th grade class at the same time and can really see the difference! I don't think I can ever go back to 6th grade and 7th grade is barely tolerable. It remains to be seen whether I move up another grade next year or find a school that can give me a full grade 8 regents program. I almost definitely will not be at my current school. See next post for one example of why.