Dr. Fleetwood’s Blog

You will have a test on proteins on Monday, 5/7/12.  The test will include everything we covered related to proteins, such as: structure, function, transcription/translation, protein folding, peptide bonds, RNA vs. DNA, enzymes, inhibition, digestion, immune system, blood types, The Structures of Life book, etc…

You will be provided with a codon table to determine amino acid sequences.

Here is a picture of a list of terms generated by my G-period class.  It may not be all-inclusive but should help.

On May 1st, biology students will take the ‘End of Course’ biology DCAS assessment.  Here are some links to help you get ready for that test.

• There is a practice test located here https://dept.tds.airast.org/student/
• I have collected the ‘End of Course Specifications‘ for biology as a PDF document.  You can use that to see everything you are expected to know for the test.
• Make sure to pay special attention to the items given a ‘priority’ of ‘essential’
• You can mostly ignore the items given a priority of ‘compact’
• For items we have not covered in class yet, you should go to my biology page and click the appropriate links to investigate those topics.  Here are the items I suggest you look over that we won’t get to before the test.
• Diffusion and Osmosis – I will be assigning a Molecular Workbench activity this week to address this.
• Punnett Squares – I have a general description and lots of practice opportunities available on my wiki page.
• Dominant and Recessive relationships and Genotypes and Phenotypes – you can look these up most anywhere, but we will also be covering them this week in relation to blood types and blood type inheritance.
• You might also want to read through the Classical Genetics section at the DNAFTB website
• pay particular attention to #11 – which details ‘crossing over’ during meiosis.  This just means that parts of the homologous pairs of chromosomes swap a section of DNA.  The end result is more variation in the offspring, which is one reason that sexual reproduction gives more variation than asexual reproduction.
• Energy – Photosynthesis and Cell Respiration – you can mostly just read the appropriate sections of the ‘specifications PDF’ above.  It will list the facts you need to know.  For the chemical equations you can see my wiki pages on photosynthesis and cell energy (as well as many other sources).
• Cells – to learn about cellular organelles and about meiosis and another view of ‘crossing over’, you should read the Inside the Cell book from NIGMS.  We are going to read this book soon anyway, so you might as well do it now.  It is a very interesting tour through the cell and discusses many things we can and can not do with regard to disease and aging.  It is by the same people who wrote the ‘Structures of Life’ book.  I also have copies in school of the physical book if you want to read it during activity period or your study hall.
• Also, don’t forget to use your textbook as a source of information.  After all, it is written with students in mind.

You will use the Molecular Workbench software to explore protein structure and the processes of transcription and translation.

The homepage of the molecular workbench software is: http://mw.concord.org/modeler/

You can run/install the software from that page.  After you install and run the software, sign in and you should see a list of activities for my class.  The protein structure activity is number 12.  The DNA to Protein activities are the top two items.  You should answer the questions throughout each activity and submit a report online to me at the end of each activity.

1. Molecular Workbench – Four Levels of Protein Structure (#12)
2. Molecular Workbench – DNA to Proteins Part 1 (#1)
3. Molecular Workbench – DNA to Proteins Part 2 (#2)

Due:  Monday, 3/26/12

Complete the following two assignments:

1. Read and complete the activities associated with the ‘external links’ at my wiki Cell Cycle page.
2. Complete the 10 steps of the microscopy lesson at my microscopy lesson wiki page.  This will take you a fair amount of time so do not put it off to the last minute!

Due: Friday, 2/24/12