Protein synthesis is the process that the cell goes through to make a protein from the information stored in the DNA. The video below shows a demonstration that you can do in your classroom to show how protein synthesis works. This demonstration emphasizes the following points:

1. DNA contains the information to make a specific protein.
2. The DNA is in the nucleus of the cell.
3. The DNA cannot leave the nucleus.
4. The ribosomes make the protein from the information.
5. The ribosomes are in the cytoplasm and cannot go into the nucleus.

The metaphor that I use in class is that the DNA is like a series of recipe books in the library. These books cannot be checked out/taken out of the library. The only way to get the information that is in the books out of the library is to make a copy. mRNA is the copy of the information that can leave the nucleus and go into the cytoplasm so that the ribosome can read and make the protein. Watch the video to see how it comes all together.

Teaching tips: Place the amino acids around the classroom (cytoplasm). Assign students to be specific tRNA’s. They will get the specific amino acid and bring it to the ribosome for you.



An important component in learning matter, is being able to measure how much space matter takes up–in other words volume. Measuring the volume of liquids requires the use of a graduated cylinder. Students need practice to use the graduated cylinder effectively. My colleague, Cindy Giove, shared the lab activity, Rainbow Volume with me. It is a fun way for students to practice and an easy way for teachers to assess their growth. Students first start out with beakers of blue, red, and yellow water. They then measure a certain amount of colored water into each test tube. If they follow the directions carefully, and do the measurements accurately they will end up with test tubes with 11 ml of red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple water. Download rainbow volume handout. Download rainbow volume key.

Materials: beakers of red, blue, and yellow water, and a 25 ml graduated cylinder

Materials: empty test tubes at the beginning

End results: colors and equal volumes

Genetic engineering may be the single most important development in biology in the last 20 years. Bio Rad is a terrific Bay Area company that sells easy to use kits that can be used in the classroom. Bio Rad’s pGLO transformation kit (see below) essentially allows students to insert the Green Fluorescence Protein (GFP) from a jellyfish and insert it into E. coli bacteria. With this inserted gene the bacteria make GFP and thus the bacteria glow green under UV light. The name of the kit is the pGLO Bacterial Transformation Kit. For detailed explanation of the kit, see video below.

pGLO kit

kit contents

video demonstration of kit

Google Maps has recently developed “My Maps” where Google Maps can be annotated with pictures, lines, shapes, and points. I incorporated this new tool with one of my all time favorite lessons: The Solar System Scale Model. This model shows the Sun and the nine planets (yes I still include Pluto for comparison reasons) to scale in both size and distance. For details download the student (word document) and teacher handout (word document). You can take a look at the model in action by going to Google Maps or download the Google Earth kml file to look at in Google Earth. Below is a short narrated video clip of the Google Earth version.

We are now beginning our unit on density and buoyancy and I like to use this learning activity to introduce density. Making students aware of their misconceptions is one of the most powerful methods in teaching science. When you demonstrate the actual reality of the concept it can break their misconception and students are forced to change their thinking. I give the students the following challenge statement (word document):

“Ojbects that are high in mass sink in water.”

Students have to write a paragraph stating if they agree, disagree, or are somewhat in between with the statement. They have to explain in detail their reasoning. It is not important that they are actually right or not, they just need to be able to clarify their thinking. I then do the following (see video below).

Afterward the students need to explain in a paragraph if their thinking has changed and if so, they need to explain how. The items that were used in the demo can be found at Educational Innovations. Here is a list of the items, with their masses and densities (excel spreadsheet).