Lesson Plan: Mendel's Experiments in Genetics

Happy Mendel's Birthday to all!  As Google let us know, it is the 189th birthday of Gregor Mendel, the Austrian scientist who first recorded the patterns of reproduction, famously breeding peas to see what traits were passed onto the next generation, and thus earned the title of Father of Genetics.

Like I've said before, we like to celebrate everything around here, so we had a Gregor Mendel birthday party today.  We invited some friends over and together did an activity based on Mendel's cross-breeding peas experiment.  But since we didn't have the time for new plants to grow, plus peas aren't really that exciting for middle school-aged students, we did a simulated cross-breeding of a much more interesting life form suggested by our recent excursion to see the last Harry Potter movie--we did our simulated gene pool analysis based on breeding dragons!  We used a wonderful lesson plan developed at Vanderbilt and added onto by former middle school teacher Nancy Clark called "Inheritance Patterns in Dragons," which you can download from this page. (But if you aren't into dragons, but are into Harry Potter, there is another site where you can map the genetic path through which Muggles can produce witches and wizards and magical folk can have Squibbs from the National Institute of Health.)

After a general explanation of DNA and genetics, each student chose a set of seven "genes" with different dominant or recessive traits from the same male and female parents.

However, a worksheet helped them figure out what traits would be expressed in each specific offspring (fire breathing vs. no fire, number of toes or spines, color of body, wings, and tale, etc.).  Then each student drew a picture of a dragon with the genetic trails of that pairing.

So, for example, all the dragons (different in style though they might be) had blue bodies--obviously a dominant trait.  Three of the four had red wings and red tails; however, one had yellow wings and a yellow tail.  This demonstrates the fact that the same parents can produce a smaller number (statistically) of offspring with recessive trails, even if the parents themselves don't show those traits.

Anyway, the students really enjoyed it, and seemed to be clear about the basics of genetic inheritance after doing this exercise.

Plus, because it was, after all, a birthday party, I made a dish of Dragon Dip:

This is basically a healthier and vegan version of nachos, with whole wheat tortillas as the skeleton, tomato salsa as the blood, refried bean dip as the muscle, and, in honor of Mendel, peas as the dragon skin (except for the wings, where the skin is made of corn.  It is finished off with a grape tomato for its eye and dried jalapeno peppers as the fire breathing part, heated in the oven until hot, and them consumed with dragon skills (tortilla chips).

There are also some great online resources to use to explore this topic.  BioLogica has two web labs on genetics:  an online dragon genetics simulation, and animations of topics like meiosis along with a pea breeding experiment (like Mendel's) that is based on the fairy tale of the Princess and the Pea.  The Pea Soup website tells Mendel's story, as well as having an interactive simplified simulation of the pea experiment.

This is a fun topic to explore with middle schoolers, especially if you can include some of these more imaginative resources.....and everything goes better with some dragon-based food!

Curriculum Resource: French Revolution Recipe--Bastille Chicken

Today in our history coop we were covering the French Revolution.  We had read some books prior to the class, and then we heard various presentations and did different activities related to that time period up through the Napoleonic wars.

Since my son enjoys learning to cook, we thought we would bring the lesson home by making a related dinner tonight.  However, due to our various allergies, we didn't like any of the "authentic" recipes we found.  So we came up with our own dinner, based on our invention of "Chicken Bastille."

We were working on the theme of the French Revolutionary flag.  Red and Blue were the traditional colors of Paris, and White was the color of France.  However, since there are so few foods that are naturally colored Blue, we substituted Green in the form of Haricot Vert, or French Green Beans.

So this is what we did.  Sorry, I'm not a measuring cook, so this is not an official recipe.  But it gives you an idea about how we created a meal that relates to the French Revolution in our own minds, at least.

First, we mixed some of our favorite spices with flour.  Then we covered chicken breasts with the flour/spice mixture.  We selected 4-6 green beans and put them in the middle of our chicken breasts, then rolled the breasts around them.  We did that with all the chicken breasts/green beans.

We had a bag of red creamer potatoes.  We cut them into relatively equal slices, then mixed them with chunks of onions, then poured a little olive oil and salt and pepper on them.  On top of that, we placed the chicken breasts rolled around haricots vert (or green beans).    That gave us red (potatoes), white (chicken breasts in flour), and green (beans) instead of blue.

We also made a cream sauce to pour on top and emphasize the white/French aspect.  We sauteed some garlic in olive oil, then added an equal amount of flour to make a roux.  Once that browned, we added some white wine and then some cream.  Voila---garlic wine cream sauce!  How much more French could you get?

We served this with a salad vinaigrette and a French baguette.   Bon Appetit!

PS--This meal was also inspired by my friend Doug, a master chef, who turned 50 today.  Happy Birthday, Doug!  We love you!

Vegan Coconut Pound Cake Recipe

Tonight we had a beloved visitor--a man who is my husband's Blackfoot teacher and my son's unofficial godfather, whom we call Mr. Chuck.  Mr. Chuck loves coconut, so my son and I are always trying to find new dessert recipes that feature coconut to cook for Mr. Chuck.  But this is complicated by the fact that my son is allergic to nuts, dairy, and eggs.

Our local newspaper had a recipe in last week's cooking session for a coconut pound cake that was supposed to be delicious.  However, pound cake is usually a problem for us, given that it includes large amounts of my son's forbidden foods.  But we tried adapting the recipe by using our substitutes for the traditional butter, eggs, and milk.  This brings cooking beyond merely life skill lessons to exercises in math and chemistry, as we try to figure out the correct proportions of our substituted ingredients.

Anyway, we had this for dessert after dinner tonight, and it was generally considered to be a great success.  Mr. Chuck said it was better than the pound cake he had been served in France, although he was probably just being nice.  It is more crumbly and cakier than I consider real pound cake to be, but given how many of my vegan baking experiments turned out to be dense bricks the consistency of fruit cakes, I think cakier is not a bad problem to have.  It did have a nice coconut-y flavor (for other coconut fans like Mr. Chuck).

So here is our attempt at a vegan poundcake:

Mr. Chuck’s Vegan Coconut Pound Cake

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup (2 sticks) vegan margarine
• 2 cups sugar
• 7 1/2 teaspoons Egg Replacer
• 10 tablespoons warm water
• 1/2 cup coconut milk
• 7 ounces flaked coconut

Grease and flour a tube cake pan or a Bundt pan.

Make the egg substitutes by putting 10 tablespoons in warm water and adding 7 1/2 teaspoons egg replacer.  Stir and set aside to thicken.

Mix together the flour, baking powder, and salt and set aside for later.

Cream the margarine and sugar together in a large bowl until light yellow and fluffy.  Add the egg replacers and beat well.

Add 1/2 of flour mixture and mix well.  Then add 1/4 cup of coconut milk and mix well.  Repeat with the remainder of the flour mixture and coconut milk.  Mix in flaked coconut.

Pour into prepared pan and bake in a 350 degree oven for approximately one hour.