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Middle School Biology Department: 8H Bioinformatics Activity with the Mac Lab Platform

October 29, 2018

Middle School Biology Department: 8H Bioinformatics Activity with the Mac Lab Platform

In the 8th grade biology curriculum, students recently learned about taxonomy, the study of the classification of organisms. Students learned that one of the most important bases for classification nowadays is DNA evidence, which provides insight as to how species share evolutionary histories.

To allow students a better understanding of the process of classification based on DNA information, the school introduced a new bioinformatics activity that also teaches students how to use modern technology in the field of biology. In this bioinformatic computer experiment, students compared the amino acid sequences of the hemoglobin beta protein, which is derived from the DNA sequence that codes the hemoglobin beta protein, to observe the branching of the evolutionary tree among various species.

The tree also makes sense taxonomically, since the result from the analysis verifies what students already know from class. Just like what students expected, all primates are grouped together in the evolutionary tree, while the closest relative of the mouse is the rat.

(Written by 8(2) Ivan Pictures by Shenghua Yao）