Yeast Monohybrid Cross

During the last two weeks, the upper graders worked on their monohybrid yeast cross project. They started by preparing petri dishes with agar, then they cultured the yeast strains, and performed a cross between two heterozygotous (Rr x Rr - R being the dominant allele coding for white yeast, and r the recessive allele coding for red yeast).
Each student has a handout describing the experiment, and they had to answer some genetics questions throughout the project. If you want to see your kid's work, take a look at his/hers science folder. I also gave them a quiz about the basics of genetics on Wednesday so that I can see if there are any misunderstandings that I should address in the next two weeks (my last weeks with them). I am honestly amazed with how smart these kids are! They learn extremely fast, and ask very smart questions. It is a pleasure to work with this group!
Students will be writing a lab report - with introduction, methods, results and discussion sections - next week. We have talked about the structure and purpose of scientific papers, and I will be helping them with their reports next Monday. Below are some pictures of the kids working on this project.

McLaughlin Field trip

As you all know, on November 2nd we went to the McLaughlin reserve to plant the native grass seedlings. Below are some pictures from our field trip.