5 minute science lesson plan ideas needed.?

Question

I'm doing a five minute lesson for some job interveiws coming up, and as I am a genetics major and would like to be teaching high school level science, I would like to have a lesson plan/idea that works for that level. In particular, I would like to do a lesson on some aspect of DNA. Any ideas from the people out there that I can add to ideas I already have?

Please note that I only have five minutes to do this in in front of a groups of "students" that are going to be asking a lot of questions, etc. Also, if you can't use proper spelling and grammer in your answer, please don't answer the question because I won't consider it. Also, I know a lot of people have mentioned dom/reses stuff but in reality, that's a little too much for five minutes.

Answer 1

One approach is to show how the whole is greater than the sum of the parts (the DNA and its relationship to the cells, organs, etc.) and how the whole is contained in every part (the full structure of the DNA is present in every part (RNA, cells, tissues, organs, etc.)

Another approach that you can further develop:

Cells continually multiply for growth and renewal. This constant creation and renewal is based on the genetic tradition. Look at one or all of the following cells:
(1) an onion root tip showing mitotic division, (2) a human liver cell, and (3) an amoeba (either live or on film). Discuss the processes through which they multiply in terms of the creative and traditional qualities of creative intelligence. How does the non-changing genetic code allow for the ever-changing expressions of cellular life?

You can also make charts showing, for example, the DNA and its unfoldment to RNA>cells>organs>etc., and so on--from the infinite to the most finite value. (The infinite being the unified field, since physics tells us that all of creation has its source in the unified field.) If you want to take it to that level.

Some quotes to consider:

"We should let ourselves be guided by what is common to all" Heraclitus

"THere is an arrangement in the living being, a kind of regulated activity, which must never be neglected, because it is in truth the most striking characteristic of living beings...

Vital phenomena posses indeed their rigorously determined physico-chemical conditions, but, at the same time, they subordinate themselves and succeed one another in a pattern and according to a low which pre-exists' they repeat themselves with order, regularity, constancy, and they harmonize in such a manner as to bring about the organization and growth of the individual animal, or plant."
Claude Bernard

...this is a piece too fair
To be the child of Chance, and not of Care.
No atoms casually together hurl'd
Could e're produce so beautiful a world.
John Dryden

Something it swings on more than the
earth I swing on,
To it the creation is the friend whose embracing
awakens me.

Perhaps I might tell more. Outlines! I plead
for my brothers and sisters.

Do you see O my brothers and sisters?
It is not chaos or death--it is form, union,
plan--it is eternal life--it is
Happiness.
Walt Whitman

You won't find too many science teachers including quotes in their syllabus. It is nice when students find a correlation with another subject and the approach may give you the attention you are looking for to stand out in the interview process.

Good luck!

Answer 2

I always thought it interesting how plants and animals get selected by the environment. Short dandelions survive in a yard that's constantly mowed while under a fence on the same yard the tall dandelions get the advantage because they block the sun falling on the shorter weeds. Same species but genetics plays a part as to which one survives in what environment.

Answer 3

Yup, a good profession.
I'm trying to think, but nothing happens. Oops.

Here' a brain fart. Have a set of pictures, ready to display the differences between recessive and dominant gene driven traits. Explain why.

Answer 4

Give a demonstration/explanation of how DNA samples are collected and processed and read.

Answer 5

maybe u could tell them this..
if a dad has brown eyes, and a mom has blue ones..the child would have ---?
brown takes precedence over blue n stuff..
or maybe the XX XY stuff..