The first unit in science was all about DNA and Genetics.  But, before diving into the unit, our teacher had us create a mind map that showed our existing knowledge of the subject.

As you can see I really knew nothing about this unit, I was somewhat worried to see if I would understand the concept, but I was mostly excited to hopefully learn something new. At first, we were introduced to the topic: how DNA determines the characteristics of living things? We watched a YouTube video about DNA to help us understand it:

The YouTube video actually helped a lot, and it touched on a lot of key points that would help me throughout the whole unit. After reflecting on the video we started taking notes about the different unit subjects. At the beginning of each class, we would fill out notes about different key aspects of the unit. I gained a lot of knowledge about DNA and Genetics from doing this. This is an example of one of the note pages:

One ongoing assignment throughout the whole unit was the work we did on a website that acted as a learning guide on Heredity and Genetics. The work we did here was somewhat confusing and I often did not know what work I had to finish. This is an example of some of the work I did on the website:

Then after a few days of classes, we started to get working time for our DNA and Genetics project. The single question we had to answer in our podcasts was: If two sets of identical twins get married and each couple has a child could the resulting children be identical? First, we got into partners and then we started working on the script. My partner was Aiden. Writing the script was quite easy because we could look back at all of our previous work from the unit. I found myself often looking back at the notes to help me format ideas. This is our script:

Now it was time to record the podcast. This was really fun because I was playing the role of a German scientist that was being interviewed for the podcast. I had a German accent (or at least I tried to have one) for the whole podcast. After Aiden and I had recorded the podcast we moved onto editing it. We found some great free music and some sound effects and added them to the podcast. Once Aiden and I finished editing we handed the podcast in and it was played in front of the PLP 10 class for marking. This was our final podcast.

The feedback and marks we got back were very good and Aiden and I were very happy with how the final product turned out.

I have learned so much about Genetics and DNA. At the beginning of the unit, I made a mind map on my existing knowledge of the subject. Now, at the end of the unit, I was asked to make another mind map on the same topic to see the growth of my knowledge. This is my unit-end mindmap:

 

 

This unit has been really interesting and I sure have learned a lot.

 

Thanks for reading.