Slides and Notes available on “Working with Genes” (presentation for kids)

Those of you who have been following my posts for a while might have read this one from Fall 2008: Scientist Meets Small Children, and doesn’t stop talking (and listening) all day!.

The slides are now available from SlideShare, and embedded below:

Working with Genes: A Presentation for Children (Key Stages 1 and 2)

View more presentations from Allyson Lister.

The only problem I’m having is that the slides are mainly pictures. I have extensive notes to guide the speaker in the notes section of the Open Office document, but they don’t seem to be saved to SlideShare. So, until I can figure something better out, here are the notes for each slide. Any comments, suggestions, modifications, etc very much welcome. I hope it helps people. Enjoy!

Notes for slides:

Slide 1 (Title Slide)

KS1 and KS2:
These are Maine Coons, a particular breed of cat.
Has anyone heard of “genes” before?
Genes store the information that makes each one of us different. Eye color, shoe size, hair color…
Sometimes, there can be a change in a gene that is “good”: that allows a cat to run faster, or a dog to smell better
Sometimes that change can cause problems: some diseases are caused by mistakes in genes
Cats have been around for 1000s of years. They were domesticated by us.
How do we get domestic animals? What does domestic mean?
We can breed animals we like the most together
New ways of doing this are around now, which I’ll talk about later
KS2:
How do you know it is the right thing to do? (Irish setters – epilepsy http://www.canadasguidetodogs.com/setterirish.htm, laborador retrievers – hip problems, “mutts” – can be healthier)
In short: remember to think for yourself, and learn before reaching a decision.

Slide 2

KS1 and KS2:
Charlie is a normal domestic cat. She is 6 years old and lives with me. Do you know what that pattern is? She’s a brown tabby with some orange spots.
This other cat looks the same, and acts the same. But there is one big difference. He wouldn’t make my neighbour sneeze!
How many of you know people who sneeze when they are around cats or dogs?
The domestic cat was selectively bred from wild cats at least 9.500 years ago, and has been around since at least ancient Egypt (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6251434.stm) and probably longer, see recent SciAm article: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-taming-of-the-cat
The company that breeds cats like the guy at the bottom here found a few cats that didn’t cause allergies, and bred more of them.
What traits do you like most in cats? What would you like to see?
KS2:
Allerca bred out cases where the Fel d 1 glycoprotein was a version that caused allergic reactions. The process uses gene sequencing to detect rare naturally occurring genetic divergences in cats.

Slide 3

KS1:
What kind of domestic animal is this?
KS1 and KS2:
Humans breed horses to look and act specific ways
What do you think are the most important things that make up a good horse?
Colour?
Strong muscles?
Good eyesight?
Size?
Personality?
KS2:
What might you want to breed out of horses? Do they have any problems that should be fixed?

Slide 4

KS1 and KS2
Would those things you suggested in the previous slide be good all the time?
A large horse would have trouble finding food on a small island
A black horse would stand out in the desert.
KS2
Having lots of different types of horses makes sure that some of them will always survive changes in the environment

Slide 5

KS1 and KS2
What kind of animal is this?
This is a zebrafish. You can often find it in home aquaria. It’s pretty small – only a few centimetres long
Why do you think it is called a zebrafish?

Slide 6

KS1 and KS2
What animals are these?
They’re jellyfish
Under the right light, some jellyfish are fluorescent, and you can get both yellow and green colours.
You can get red fluorescence from a sea coral

Slide 7

KS1 and KS2
What is different about these zebrafish?
They are not striped, and they are different colours.
Instead, they’re called glofish.
The colours are not normally found in zebrafish.
The genes for these colours are taken from the coral and the jellyfish, and added to the zebrafish
http://www.newscientist.com/channel/health/gm-food/dn4411

Slide 8

KS1 and KS2
What do you think a fishberry is? Can you tell from the name? Do you know what antifreeze is? – it gets put into cars in the winter.
Some scientists tried to make tomatoes resistant to frost by putting a fish antifreeze gene into it. It never worked, but the media picked up on it anyway. “fishberries” -  tomatoes and/or strawberries with the flounder antifreeze gene – were researched, but never worked properly. A bit of an urban legend. See http://www.geo-pie.cornell.edu/media/fishberries.html
What are some other ideas for plants that might help them survive bad weather, diseases, or insects?
Scientists have lots of ideas, but they don’t always work. Also, scientists are very careful and try to ensure that the combinations they make are good ones. Lots of testing!

Slide 9

KS1 and KS2
We use germs to make medicine!
The germs in the picture live in our guts, and help us out in digesting our food.
You might have drunk some if you have had a probiotic drink.
Some examples of good choices discussed in previous slide: Using “germs” to make medicine.
Insulin (Diabetes)
We can put the human gene for insulin into these guys, and they will make the medicine for us
Originally from cow, horse, pig or fish pancreases , but now 70% of insulin sold is recombinant (2002).(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insulin)
KS2
With cells dividing rapidly (every 20 minutes), a bacterium containing human cDNA (encoding for insulin, for example) will shortly produce many millions of similar cells (clones) containing the same human gene. http://www.accessexcellence.org/RC/VL/GG/transfer_and.php
http://www.littletree.com.au/dna.htm : 51 amino acids long
Adding vaccines for humans into food crops/animals (into tomatoes, e.g.)

Slide 10

KS1 and KS2
We can try to fix mistakes in our own bodies!
Target a specific area: Diseases of the eye: http://www.nhs.uk/news/2008/04april/pages/genetherapyforrareeyecondition.aspx
Cystic fibrosis: http://www.cysticfibrosismedicine.com/cfdocs/cftext/genetherapy.html
It is a single gene defect.
The lung is most affected.
Most heterozygote carriers have approximately 50 % CFTR function and are completely asymptomatic.
Thalassaemia: http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn2915
(others include Haemophilia)

Slide 11

KS1 and KS2

we change things, and have done for 1000s of years
The tool is not the issue: it used to be just selective breeding, now there are new tools
each individual change has to be thought about, to determine if it is a good idea or not

Slide 12

KS1 and KS2

pigs with less saturated fat (not happened yet, but people talking about it): http://www.newscientist.com/channel/health/gm-food/dn1841
spider silk from goats’ milk (in the original study, 5x stronger than steel, by weight, and very flexible – bulletproof vests!): http://www.newscientist.com/channel/health/gm-food/dn1807
and now in 2008 from alfalfa http://hayandforage.com/hay/alfalfa/0301-silk-gene-value-alfalfa/ , as it would otherwise take 600 lbs of goats’ milk to make one bulletproof vest!
caffeine-free coffee plants: http://www.newscientist.com/channel/health/gm-food/dn3851
no-tears onion: http://www.newscientist.com/channel/health/gm-food/dn2935

Slide 13

KS1 and KS2

Just a nice picture of different-coloured bacteria on a plate.
Questions?
Shinomura, Chalfie, and Tsien shared this year’s Nobel Prize for Chemistry for their work on green fluorescent protein, originally isolated from a jellyfish. Science is interesting and beautiful!
This is the last true slide. The one after this links to the licenses for the photos, and the ones after that are just in case we want to show them.

Slide 14 – no notes

Slide 15 – extra

This slide is too old for them, but put it at the end in case there is a specific question by a precocious kid or an adult.
A weakened strain of the common bacterium, Escherrichia coli (E. coli), an inhabitant of the human digestive tract, is the ‘factory’ used in the genetic engineering of insulin. (http://www.littletree.com.au/dna.htm)

Slide 16 – extra

Fluorescent mice. However, the kids might be scared of this pic, or not like it, so include it at the back and only use it if it seems appropriate.