To introduce Punnett Squares, students worked on the Bikini Bottom Genetics worksheets!

Today, students collected class data on a variety of traits.  Next class, we will compile this data and look at the traits across the class as well as between classes.

For more practice with the stages of mitosis, students cut out and arranged still images of mitosis in various stages.  This engaged the students logical, sorting and imagery skills.  This shows that students can understand the stages of mitosis through ordering pictures.

For the stages of mitosis, we have planned a series of activities.  The first is a graphic organizer with labels, pictures and key points of each stage.  The second is identifying the stage of mitosis in a series of onion cell pictures.  Check back for future activities!

Why do we need to learn about mitosis? To fully understand cancer, we must first learn about mitosis.  Mitosis is when cells replicate their DNA and divide.  Cancer occurs when this process goes terribly wrong.  To introduce mitosis, we watched this video and connected mitosis to the "real world."

Throughout our unit on DNA and genetics, we will be reading The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.  Henrietta had cells taken from her cervical cancer which were then used and develop for science research.  Now known as HeLa, these cells have been used many ways, including but not limited to, cancer, AIDS, and polio research.  This story is about Henrietta's Life.

Currently our Life Science classes are working on a project where they are creating a play to describe how the different parts of a cell interact.  Check back for updates!