It’s in Your DNA (Brilliant Biology Experiments)

You will need:

q Red and black chew sticks
q Coloured marshmallows
q Gummy bears
q Toothpicks
q Needle, String & Scissors

Through this experiment have fun understanding your DNA.

INSTRUCTIONS

1. The coloured marshmallows and gummy bears represent the nucleotide bases which make up your DNA. There should be four different colours which constitute the adenine, cytosine, guanine and thymine.
2. Assigning names to the red and black coloured chew sticks cut them up into 1-inch pieces, naming them as pentose sugar molecules and phosphate molecules.
3. Use a needle and string, line up half the pieces of the chew sticks alternating between red and black.
4. Create one more string identical to the first.
5. Next use the different coloured marshmallows or gummy bears. Attach 2 different pieces of coloured marshmallows with a toothpick and then attach the 2 ends of the toothpick to a 1-inch piece of chew stick on each string.
6. But attach the 2 ends of the toothpick to the same coloured piece on both sides.
7. Repeat the last 2 steps until both the strings of chew sticks are connected to each other by the various toothpicks.
8. Holding the 2 strings at both ends, twist them slightly.

RESULT

DNA or Deoxyribonucleic acid was first discovered in the 1950’s by Francis Crick and James Watson, the DNA structure is a macromolecule. With a structure resembling a twisted double helix, the DNA controls the cellular activity and contains vital information responsible for our genetics.