Mr. Ardito’s Classes

59 responses so far ↓

• 1    lizardboy93 // Dec 17, 2006 at 11:53 am

  The first thing I asked my Dad before explaining DNA to him was what do you think DNA is? He responded by saying, “I think that DNA is like the fingerprint of life. No organism’s DNA is the same.” I thought that this example of DNA was great. I told him about the experiment we did in school with the marshmallows and twislers and he got the concept of it. I told him what everything was called and what everything met. At the end, his response was, “Wow, when I was in school, my teachers didn’t explain DNA to me the way you did! I learned a lot about DNA from you.”

• 2    mr.coolguy // Dec 17, 2006 at 2:38 pm

  When I asked my mom what she thinks DNA was, she said it is what we are made of. She seemed sort of intertested while we were doing the lab. I hink it must have felt silly to her that I had to do this with her. When asked, she said she didn’t really learn anything new.

  I felt that the intergration of the dog in the lab was cool because my mom would always want to get a trait that my dog has. I think that this would be a better lab to do with younger people rather than older people.

• 3    acex2inurface // Dec 17, 2006 at 4:47 pm

  When I asked my mom if I could teach her about the DNA, she seemed interested. She told me that she didn’t learn that much about it and also didn’t know a lot about it. So I gladly taught her about the DNA. I told her that it was inside the cell, that it carried the parents genes when they made an offsprings, how a strand of DNA are called Chromosomes, and that there are problems that can occur; some from family generations or just from the outside.

  My mom actually listen to what I was teaching. She said that it was interesting and amazing how the DNA works. She also thought that all the information will be useful in the future.

• 4    Silverwolf // Dec 17, 2006 at 5:37 pm

  When I was in the car with my mom on Sunday, I asked her if she could do a science lab with me. She seemed interested in doing it so I pulled out my scissors and started to cut out the strips of DNA. I asked her if she knew what DNA was. She responded by saying, “Yes, I know what DNA is.” So I told her to tell me what it was and she said that it was what controlled a cell’s activities. I said to her that this was correct but that was not the only thing DNA does. I went on to explain about how DNA comes in the form of a twisted ladder and about the backbone and rungs and about how it is like a recipe for everything that a cell does and what you look like and what forms of diseases you might carry. I then went through the lab with her and we took turns pulling out the DNA strands from the envelope and then taping them into one strand. After the lab my mom and I drew a picture of our dog and stepped back to look at it and laughed. It was the most hideous and abstract dog that we had ever seen. My mom said, “That’s what happens when you mess around with DNA,” and started to laugh again. Afterwards she could explain to me what DNA was and how it worked as well as Mr. Ardito!

• 5    kenny24 // Dec 17, 2006 at 11:54 pm

  My mom knew a little bit about DNA when I first started talking to her. I started out by telling her that DNA strips were called chromosomes and they controlled all your traits. I told her traits were things that determine what color eyes you have amongst other things. I also told her about alleles and that they are all the different types of outcomes your traits could be. I explained to my mom that you inherit your traits from your parents. I also told my mom about sex linked diseases. I showed her how this occurs using a Punnett square. She understood this easily because my cousin has hemophilia. Then I explained to my mom that a DNA strand is called a double helix and connecting the two ladder like sides are called bases. Adenine (one type of base) can only connect to thymine (another type of base). Guanine (a third type of base) can only connect to cytosine (a forth type of base). I think my mom enjoyed learning about DNA. This was a learning experience for me. I realized I knew more about this topic than I thought I did because I was able to answer my mom’s questions.

• 6    Vote Jon // Dec 18, 2006 at 4:48 pm

  I had to teach my mom and she was very difficult to work with. It went well with the DNA stuff I taught her.I told her about how only certain bases can connect with each other. I explained how it you inherit traits from your parents and she went on and on about which traits I inherited from her and which ones I inherited from my dad. I told her about how its a double helix and how if you stretch one piece its six feet long. She already knew some stuff about it so it was easy and she kept correcting me though. It was ok when we starting doing the dog stuff. She kept making me change it and kept asking to pick over because she didn’t like how it turned out. In the end we had a very weird and strange looking dog. It didn’t even look like a dog. And then we were in the middle of taping the strands together and she almost fell asleep on the couch! And then she refused to draw it and made me do it instead. But overall it was really fun.

• 7    volleyball chick 4 lifee // Dec 18, 2006 at 4:57 pm

  I had to teach my sister and I had a lot of fun. We fooled around a bit and we made the goofiest looking dog ever. We had a lot of fun, but she wasn’t very interested because she already knows a lot about DNA and genetics because she is in 11th grade. Overall though the activity went really well.

• 8    DARLiNGPiNK! // Dec 18, 2006 at 7:23 pm

  Reflection on Teaching

  While doing this project, I realized that teaching is not as easy as it looks. It is very hard to keep the attention of a pupil throughout the lesson and guide them through something. I applaud Mr. Ardito for being able to put up with us talking and being disruptive during class time.

  For this project, I taught my mom about genetics. I noticed that while I was explaining genetics to her by just telling, she didn’t seem intrigued. Granted she’s a doctor so she already knows this stuff, but while I was just explaining she was sorting through the newspapers and not paying attention. This really frustrated me because I wanted her to listen. I stopped just reading stuff from the packet and my notes and started the activity with her. While I was doing the activity I explained genetics over to her, and she really seemed like she was paying attention. She even said she was having fun doing it and enjoyed the explanations that I gave using dog traits. Our dog is pretty funny looking, but she enjoyed matching up the traits and seeing what we were going to get!!

  From this project I found out that when you just tell someone something they are not going to listen as well, but when you show someone something they get interested and suddenly whatever you’re teaching becomes fun and exciting! I know that’s how I feel in science class, I really enjoyed making candy DNA models and it was much more fun than taking notes. It’s like the Chinese proverb that you read to us at the beginning of the year. When you show someone something they can use it their whole life. I really liked doing it, even if my mom was a know-it-all the entire time.

• 9    White Ivy // Dec 18, 2006 at 8:12 pm

  I taught my dad about DNA. He didn’t really pay attention at the beginning, but he had forgotten some of the facts that I stated so he got more interested. He asked me questions just like a real student would. They were good questions too. He wanted to know how to spell different things, and asked me questions about things I had left out. It’s always fun to teach something to someone else, even if they already know it. I want to be a teacher when I grow up, so it was a fun experiance for me. I felt like a real teacher, trying to get my student’s attention, and trying to keep it. I had to answer questions and he relied on me to know the answers. I mean, I guess not really since he already knew them, but he wanted to know if I did. This was a great technique to make sure you really know your facts!

• 10    chattychicka // Dec 18, 2006 at 9:02 pm

  Teaching my parents about DNA was quite a challenge. I looked at everyone’s helpful reflections to help me start off with my parents. Taking the lead of a few other students from the class, I asked my parents what they thought DNA was, as they folded up the sheets. My dad responded very quickly “deoxyribonucleic acid” so I rephrased my question asking what it did. As I explained further about DNA, I saw my parents stop and get more interested. I explained how adenine matched up with thymine and guanine with cytosine. I showed how I used this by showing them the metaphor “George Clooney” which really helped them remember. I also explained how if you split the bonds, you could see the letters and then construct codons and then genes. I used the metaphor we used in class with the letters, words and sentences. My dad (being very smart) surprised me but not knowing how genes were
  constructed. My mom also explained how her DNA make it so she has a skin disease. This made it so I got to explain how genetic engineering worked and that she technically could get it removed. It was really hard to explain what I knew, and I think this really tested my knowledge and understanding of genetics. I managed to get my parents interested while helping them learn. Next time I might try and bring some paper to draw diagrams.

• 11    progress report // Dec 18, 2006 at 11:40 pm

  My Experience Teaching
  By progress report 12/18/06 Ardito 8th p.d., ‘E’ lab

  When I began talking to my dad about how genetics work I noticed how confused I was. I concluded that teaching something like genetics really has to have some kind of outline or you can really tie yourself in knots. I looked back at the labs and took some notes to try and organize myself. After, it made a lot more sense. This assignment really helped me to understand how this all worked. For most of my questions I was trying to juggle very complex answers and what I had first believed complicated was re-visualized into something that now made sense*.

  Then I decided to try again to make sure I knew what I was talking about. I typed out the example below, to make it easier for me to explain. I thought I’d start off fresh so I went to my mom (who didn’t seem interested at all, besides the fact that she would repeatedly start to do something else after being asked to participate). Finally, I got to her come have a session with me. She was impossible. I taught her all of the material and after asked her questions on certain segments of the lesson. She was an unwilling pupil and, even when I gave her the answers several minutes before, she could not remember even some of the basic aspects of the material. I had believed my approach was at least adequate, but she plainly doesn’t understand. I love my mother, but genetics doesn’t seem to be her strongest subject.

  *An example of this is a likeness to Lands End:
  The clothing designer for Lands End sends a copy of their designs (DNA) for a few products, a type of shirt, a pair of jeans (the ‘genes’ come later) and a type of a jacket to Lands End’s subcontractors (ribosomes), keeping a copy of the full TRANSCRIPT (a process where the DNA is copied) on how to make that item for itself. Each product has a designated set of subcontractors (cell types). In order for Land’s End to send the package, FedEx (messenger RNA) comes to pick it up to send to the subcontractors. The subcontractors TRANSLATE and copy the product in segments (building blocks/amino acids) and put them together to make new cells. After, they come together and have a whole line of clothing.

• 12    FuNkYy MoNkEy // Dec 19, 2006 at 11:44 am

  Explaining DNA to my Mom and my Dad was a bit of a challenge for me. I understand what DNA is but to explain it to other people was more difficult. Explaining DNA helped me learn a lot about it since I looked back at my notes and reread some information that you gave us. After I finished explaining everything my parents and I really understood it. When I explained about how many bases there are in one chromosome and how many diseases each of them carry they were both really suprised. My mom said, “wow those chromosomes must be really small.” When I started explaining the codons and the genes I realized that I was having a dificult time understanding it myself. When I looked back in my notes and explained it to someone I started to understand it better. I really liked this way of learning and understanding DNA better.

• 13    ewannawanna chewbacca // Dec 19, 2006 at 11:52 am

  Teaching my mom was, uhhh, very exciting. My mom had no clue what I was talking about, but I taught her well.I had fun telling my mom what to do for once. My mom knew nothing about DNA, but once I got throuogh with her, she knew all, or most of what I know about it. I explained to her what it was and about the dog lab thing. I think that me and my mom got a lot out of this.

• 14    eyesticker03 // Dec 19, 2006 at 6:01 pm

  December 19, 2006

  For this homework assignment instead of using my parents I used my sister. My parents were unable to because of their “busy schedules”. My sister, being a year older than me, new a lot about DNA but by explaining to her what I knew and getting her feed back was helpful. At the beginning I explained to her what DNA was and she pretended she didn’t understand and made me answer her questions more thoroughly. After I had finished explaining the concept to her we did the lab. When doing the lab my sister she fully understood what to do so it turned out to be a success. She enjoyed drawing up the dog afterwards and comparing it to mine.

• 15    clark // Dec 19, 2006 at 7:59 pm

  December 19, 2006

  I had to teach my mom, because my dad was at work and my brother is 6. It was kind of tough to teach my mom because she was watching an educational TV show with my brother called “It’s a Big Big World”. It was fun, and although I know that she knows all about DNA and understands it, i feel she was distracted and couldn’t pay full attention. When explaining about DNA, I referred back to what Mr. Ardito said about how your trait recipes are just like a cook book and how if one thing changes during DNA replication, the whole thing will change. It was fun to do the project (or lab) with my mom, before she started watching TV. It was funny, our pet dog didn’t look alike to any dog I have ever seen. We both had a laugh about that and I explained that’s how much DNA effects your appearance. Overall, the project was really fun, and I enjoyed being the teacher for a change. Next time, we should be aloud to do it with younger siblings because my mom didn’t seem to enjoy it that much, she just tried to get it over with.

• 16    spygirl93 // Dec 20, 2006 at 12:56 pm

  I made sure my aunt and uncle knew what DNA is. I could sort of tell my aunt was understanding but she had my 5 year old cousin to deal with. I told them about the bases and how DNA seperates. In the beginning both of them were a little confused but after the first ten or fifteen minutes the got it.

• 17    spygirl93 // Dec 20, 2006 at 1:00 pm

  I made sure my aunt and uncle knew what DNA is. I could sort of tell my aunt was understanding but she had my 5 year old cousin to deal with. I told them about the bases and how DNA seperates. In the beginning both of them were a little confused but after the first ten or fifteen minutes the got it.
  I also noticed how much stuff i didn’t get about genetics like “what makes DNA split?” or “how does the rna atach to the dna?”
  All in all i had a good rime helping people learn something interesting but noticed i didn’t know too much about what i was explaining!

• 18    lola // Dec 20, 2006 at 5:10 pm

  Reflection on Teaching Parents About Genes

  My mom is a nurse so she understood most of what I was explaining to her. At first when I was “teaching” her about it she was playing dumb and repeating everything I said in a funny voice. I then told her after this I had to write a reflection on how it went explaining genetics to a parent. She stopped after I said that - (it was really funny). She asked a couple questions which for some I answered that I didn’t know. But for other questions I knew the answer and explained it to her so she could understand. My mom didn’t understand at first about the nitrogenous bases adenine, thymine, guanine, and cytosine and the reasons why guanine couldn’t go with thymine, and why adenine couldn’t go with cytosine. Then I explained that it was like a lock and key. They bases fit together structurally, so there was no possible way for thymine to go with anything but adenine, and so on so forth. Overall, it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be.

• 19    ManiacLeprechaun // Dec 20, 2006 at 6:42 pm

  I started by asking my mom her opinion of what DNA is. She said: “DNA is what makes up part of the cell, which is different for everybody” I then told her about how a cell is able to duplicate itself by splitting in half, and then attracting the necessary parts. I told her about the chemical bases, and which go with which. She understood basically all of it. I then told her about the class activity extracting the DNA from foods. I told her about where the DNA is located in the cell, and how it contains the instructions for the cell’s life functions. Overall she understood everything, and had no questions at the end.

• 20    wise-weasel // Dec 20, 2006 at 8:39 pm

  It was not extremely difficult to teach my father about DNA. He seemed to understand it fully, but he was more interested in drawing his dog than learning about DNA. I don’t think I made it entertaining enough for him, but I was very enthusiastic. I began by teaching him about DNA, codons, genes, chromosomes, nitrogenous bases, and so on. We then completed the experiment. I didn’t expect it to be so easy! Normally my father has no clue what I’m talking about.

• 21    Hunrgy Man // Dec 20, 2006 at 9:27 pm

  The person I tought DNA to was my mom. She didn’t really know much when we first started but when we got more into the conversation she learned more and more. I told her about what we did in school with the twizzers and marshmallows and she loved that idea. I showed her the Karyotypeof chromosomes activity that we did for homework. I also showed her a lot of the notes we took in classwhich helped her out. I showed her some of the packet but she didn’t really understand it that much from the packet. In the end she said that she knew more about DNA then she did before and when she had learned in school a long time ago.

• 22    a is for awesome // Dec 20, 2006 at 9:30 pm

  I asked my dad if he knew what DNA was. He already knew some things about it, so I decided I would try to find more things, not so obvious about DNA, that he wouldn’t already know. I figured that he would already know the basic things since he seemed to know about. I told him about chromosomes and genes too. He seemed to know about most of it though. Then I explained to him what DNA looks like. I told him the strands were called a double helix. I told him it looks like a twisted ladder, and the rungs on it are called nucleotic bases. He seemed to be more interested in what I was telling him now, and seemed like he was paying closer attention. I told him about the nucleotic bases. A,T,C,G. Then I explained that a stands for adenine, t stands for thymine, c stands for cytosine, and g stands for guenine. A always goes with T and C always goes with G. I explained to him that if they didn’t, a different protein would be created. I then told him about how many DNA strands there are packed into one tiny microscopic cell. I think he found that very interesting. By the time I finished, I think that my dad knew even more than he did about DNA. Overall, it was a pretty good experience.

• 23    opac1 // Dec 21, 2006 at 11:24 am

  I taught my mother about DNA. My mother knew some stuff about DNA before I began the lesson, but not everything. There were positives and negatives during the lesson.

  The biggest positive, in my opinion, was that I managed to keep the attention of my mother throughout the entire lesson. That is partially because my mother was a good student, similar to myself, and the fact that I made the lesson interesting. The main way I kept it interesting was that I compared the subject material to stuff in my mother’s life. For example, I said that putting thymine and guanine together would have been like trying to unlock the house with her car keys.

  The biggest negative, in my opinion, was that my mother does not learn the same way I do. I had to adjust my teaching methods to better suit my mother’s learning style. I was teaching her the way I learn by simply telling her the information. She is more of a visual learner. Once I realized this, I started drawing pictures of the DNA, and she began to gain a deeper understanding of the content.

  In the end, my mother really enjoyed the lesson. She learned a lot, and it showed in her excellent completion of the lab. Also, I thought I did a good job teaching, for a “rookie.” I feel I will do a better job in my next teaching job.

• 24    Svogthir // Dec 21, 2006 at 4:07 pm

  my experience teaching my mom was a lot like what a lot of you are describing. At first, she gave me a partially correct view of what DNA was (”the controller of the body”) but I clarified this and we had fun with the activity, although my dog was so demented my mom put it through the parper shredder. Oh well. I enjoyed it, but I cknow I could have been clearer. For the first 5 minutes, my mom only said “huh?”.

• 25    Svogthir // Dec 21, 2006 at 4:08 pm

  wait a second… how did I get that smiley?

• 26    Alphabetsoup // Dec 21, 2006 at 4:18 pm

  I tought my mom about DNA, i realized that being a teacher isnt easy. I read her my notes and went deeper into the topic i was reading. She was really interested because she didnt know that DNA replicated itself and that there was an ‘alphabet’ in them. I also told her about how we abstracted DNA from the different foods we chose. She understood everything else and though didnt have any questions or anything to add.

• 27    GuMmi PiGzZ // Dec 21, 2006 at 5:09 pm

  I taught my mom about DNA. It wasn’t as hard as teaching my dad it because he was watching football at the time and wouldn’t listen so I went to my mom. She seemed to understand it when I explained it to her, but was still confused so she wanted to go online and look it up. So then I taught it to her again then she understood. She was interested in what we were learning and I think she liked that I taught her some of it. It was really easy teaching my mom because she listened really well and asked some questions after one of which i couldn’t answer!!

  GuMmi PiGzZ

• 28    Brown eyed girl // Dec 21, 2006 at 5:41 pm

  I taught my mom about DNA. At first, when I told her needed to do this for school, she didn’t seem too interested but we went along and I started to explain to her what DNA was. I could tell she was getting bored so I stared to explain to her about what we had done in school with twizzlers and marshmallows and she became more interested. From this project I can conclude that physically doing something is much more interesting and effective than just talking about something. Not only did my mom learn more about DNA i did too. By saying the information out loud I think it clarified the information for me. If we could do more projects where we act stuff out in school, I think it would help me learn a lot better.

• 29    HiMan // Dec 21, 2006 at 6:24 pm

  When I first told my Step-Dad about this lab that are class had to do with our parents to see if we were able to teach them about DNA he seem exited to do it. I think he was excited because he thought he was smarter than me about things that had to do with DNA. When we first started I realized he was right about being smarter and because of this it was hard to teach him about it at first. Eventually I just gave up and asked him to try to be stupid. I was surprised when his answer was, “OK I’ll try.” After that it became much easier to teach him and I realize that to be able to teach some one about any topic you must be smarter than them or believe that you’re smarter than them.

• 30    Buddy // Dec 21, 2006 at 6:32 pm

  I taught my Mom about DNA. It was a little diffucult to teach it to her because I still not undersand all of it. It is pretty confusing. We did the dog DNA together and that helped a lot. My mom drew her dog at the end and ofcourse it was perfectly drawn but really ugly. I decide to show her the DNA presentation on the blog and I think that is what made all of it make sense. when we finished me and mf mom both understood DNA a little more. This activity helped me a lot.

• 31    rorofosho // Dec 21, 2006 at 6:58 pm

  IT was kind of hard to teach my dad about dna & genes, because he knew everything. So I just explained things that he knew, and every once in a while he’d learn a new fact. It was easier to explain once I gave him visuals, so i could show him how dna split, and all the letters in the dna alphabet (all four of them!) My dad also explained thing to me that I didn’t know but forget them very soon after. My dad was very impressed with allI knew, and so was I. Being a teacher isn’t as easy as i thought is was because it seems much longer than itactually is.

• 32    dancingintherain102 // Dec 21, 2006 at 7:12 pm

  I had a very interesting time trying to teach my parents about genetics. My mom was happy to listen about it but, she said that what I was saying did not totallly make sence to her. So I decieded to try to explain in using the procces in which they use to make chocolate. Once I started to use that as a point of reference she began to understand it more. Once I related what we were talking about to something that she knew about, and something she liked it was much easier to do. Overall she really understood what I was talking about, and I think she learned something. Teaching people something new is not simple but when you bring what your talking about down to their level, it is much easier to teach.

• 33    Jamie // Dec 21, 2006 at 7:32 pm

  At first I tried explaning DNA to my mom. But we got into an arguement about what different scientists think. She was totaly dead set on changing the subject to spiritual things. But alot of the things I told her, she hadn’t heard of, or she had heard in a less modern form. She liked the idea that genetic traits were carried down so far in our families. When we got to the part with the strips of shapes, she got prety confused. It took a while for her to get it, but when she did she was intent on teaching me.

• 34    dusty schmidt // Dec 21, 2006 at 7:53 pm

  I started off talking with my dad about DNA and if he knew what it was. He knew some, but just the basic things. My mom could give me a dictionary on DNA. So I taught my dad about DNA. As we were going along, he picked up some of the things I was talking about. My mom thought she knew DNA, but she was wrong about it. She knew the basic things; What it stands for, where it’s located, and how RNA is involved. It was intresting for me to teach them. I was expcecting they’d be teaching me, but it was intresting and they learned a lot I guess.

• 35    Hero kid // Dec 21, 2006 at 7:58 pm

  Teaching my parents was VERY intersting. First they said “what what what did you say could you repeat that?”. My head was about to explode but at the end(it took like 2 hours to explain to them what DNA stood for), they understood Most of what i told them about DNA.

• 36    iamnotjosh // Dec 21, 2006 at 8:34 pm

  I was watching t.v. and I went into the kitchen and asked my mom if she had a clue what DNA was? She said she knew what DNA was but she wasen’t sure what it did so I explained it to her. I said it controlled the a cell’s activites. I went on and explained that the shape of a cell was like a twisted ladder. I went on saying how it forms of the diseases you carry and the backbone and rungs are like a recipe for everything the cell does. When I ended up finishing my lab and my dog came out pretty normal. Well at least I think.

• 37    polaroid gangsta // Dec 21, 2006 at 8:42 pm

  When I first explained DNA, I kind of sped it up, and skipped facts and things. Summing it up like that didn’t really make sense to my Dad. I explained it clearer and explained more parts of things, and looked over the packet, making sure I didn’t miss anything.

  Teaching isn’t an easy thing. My parents had learned this in school, but that was a while ago, and they’ve forgotten a lot of it. If you explain things clearly and don’t leave things out it’s a lot easier for people to understand things.

• 38    Track // Dec 21, 2006 at 8:49 pm

  When I taught my parents, my dad had some prior knowledge, but I think my mom was less “informed.” The project went really well, no one misbehaving. One thing I learned today is that my dad doesn’t have the best skills as an artist, because the dog looked like a squirrel. This was fun, and I think we should do it again.

• 39    twinkletoes // Dec 21, 2006 at 9:14 pm

  When I told my brother that I was going to teach him about genetics, he was less than optimistic about it. He claimed “but I already know all of these things”. Even though he probably did, I still made him do the lab with me. While I was teaching him the things, I realized it was harder than it looks to be the teacher. You have to keep the student’s attention, which is probably not too hard, if you know what to do, but as a student myself, I didn’t know what to do. Also, my brother was trying to concentrate on something else while I was trying to teach him, which didn’t help. I also learned that he is not a very good artist-he traced most of the dog, and only drew the dog’s head freehand.
  Teaching is definetly not an easy thing.

• 40    rosie13 // Dec 21, 2006 at 9:24 pm

  When I asked my mom if she would do the DNA activity with me, she seemed vaugely interested and said yes. When I asked her to tell me what DNA was she replied, “I don’t know, tell me what it stands for.” After I managed to convey the true meaning of my question to her, she said “Well, it’s what makes us all… up.” I tried to teach her about what DNA does for us, how it separates, how it carries messages, and a bit about RNA too. When she didn’t really understand what I was trying to tell her, I realized that I really couldn’t elaborate for her. This activity showed me that there’s a lot that I don’t understand about DNA.

  My mom seemed to be a rather hopeless science student, but I definetly take some of the blame. Since I realized that I didn’t really understand what I had to teach her, I couldn’t do a very good job. I definetly need to ask for some help in understanding DNA.

• 41    rosie13 // Dec 21, 2006 at 9:29 pm

  spelling corrections: definetly should be definitely

  vaugely should be vaguely

• 42    coolchic // Dec 21, 2006 at 9:40 pm

  I tried to teach my brother but he was very difficult to work with. He already knew about the things that I was talking about since he’s a senior. I told him to pretend he didn’t know anything about genetics. He told me that he didn’t really get it but I knew he just wasn’t listening to me. I finally got him to listen to me so I started off by explaining DNA. He told me I was a horrible teacher and I agree that I was. I know that my future career is not a teacher. We did the project and from the dog that brother drew I knew he wasn’t very artistic. Overall I think it went OK.

• 43    I've been caught LEFT handed! // Dec 21, 2006 at 9:46 pm

  Reflection

  This project was not easy. First I told my mom what DNA and RNA stood for, then explained to my mom what DNA is and RNA is. She new about DNA more so I focused more on the RNA. Some parts she didn’t understand, so I used my mini white board. I drew diagrams of DNA, a
  cell and I showed her my Ardito’s examples on the Internet. In the end, my mom really understood what I was talking about. She thought that this was a good project and we should do it again, and I think the same way.

• 44    mmhmm // Dec 21, 2006 at 9:48 pm

  I was attempting to teach my older sister something but she didn’t seem to be very interested. It also didn’t help very much that she got A’s in science and started lecturing me. I also got corrected MANY times so I obviously didn’t get it that much myself. I also tried to teach my dad but he knew more than my sister and did the same only much worse he got in some rant about WWII then I just gave up. I really thing that the next time I try to teach someone about something I should study it better myself…and maybe get a student that knows a little less than me about the subject, ‘cause my family made it REALLY hard to teach them.

• 45    mmhmm // Dec 21, 2006 at 9:49 pm

  *Think Sorry

• 46    brooklynmavis22 // Dec 21, 2006 at 10:40 pm

  I attempted to teach my father about DNA.

  I realized that there’s a lot I didn’t know about DNA and RNA when I tried to explain but he kept correcting me. Also, he kept saying that the TV was distracting and that he wanted to go to sleep. So, I moved on. Then I tried to teach my mom and it was a little easier. When I asked her what DNA was and what it stood for, she SUPRISINGLY said Deoxyribonucleic acid. But, she didn’t remember much else. I think in the end, I got her to somewhat comprehend what the functions of DNA are.

• 47    iheartj&js // Dec 21, 2006 at 10:45 pm

  I think that talking to my dad about DNA really helped me understand it better. He didn’t know it super well or anything, but he asked me questions, which made me think about it, so it was a very good experience. I might use the method more often now when studying for tests. I am sure that my dad learned this stuff when he was in school, but he probably didn’t remember it. I feel like I did a good job teaching him about DNA and genetics.

• 48    H!gH ScH00l NeVeR 3nds // Dec 21, 2006 at 11:04 pm

  i talked to my mom about dna. she had no clue about anything on dna, it was very sad…. i explained to her how dna is like a cook book. she was very impressed i knew this. then i explained the names of the bases. overall i think my mom learned alot from me and my teching skillz.
  *pats my back* thats it….

• 49    GR1MR34P3R // Dec 22, 2006 at 11:23 am

  When i taught my parents about DNA I think it went very well. They listened the whole time and I think they really learned a lot from it. My mom was so interested that she looked it up online to learn more about it. I also drew a diagram which made them understand a lot better.

• 50    wps93 // Dec 22, 2006 at 11:25 am

  I taught my mom very efectively about the activity.
  Even though I new that they already knew the material, they listened intently. I also was sort of confused about the activity at the begining but as I showed it to my mom I also taught myself. I showed her a drawing that seemed to be very helpful. I saw that my mom was actually very intruiged about the project. It was pretty fun!

• 51    uberpwn // Dec 31, 2006 at 4:07 pm

  While doing this with my mom I realized she hasn’t been doing this stuff since highschool because she was a music major. It was like starting this whole unit over again. She seemed interested as i rambled on about DNA and it’s purpose. We had a long discussion about traits being passed and recessive and dominant genes. I think this actually helped me learn more than my mom did because it was just reteaching it to myself over again.
  I really liked this project because i was sub-conciously reinforcing what i had learned. Being a teacher is not as easy as it looks and this really helped me understand that a teachers job is not only yelling at kids, but helping them understand areas of life.

• 52    thecoolestkid // Jan 1, 2007 at 12:30 pm

  I tried to teach my dad but he didn’t understand. So I went to Mr.Ardito’s website then my dad knew what I was saying. I showed my dad the DNA matching game. And I showed him the clip on what DNA looks like. And he thought it was really cool.

• 53    Gia Beth // Jan 1, 2007 at 4:33 pm

  I taught my mother about DNA. I have already told her a lot about what we’ve been learning in class so most of what I was teaching her was a review of what I have already taught her. After doing the activity with her, she further understood what it was that I had been telling her. I made sure to point out that when chromosomes (DNA strands) are formed, the DNA is just being randomly picked. By looking at the final drawing of the dog she had created by randomly picking the DNA strips, she fully understood how randomly strings of DNA are created; and it helped me understand everything we’ve been learning a lot more. I really enjoyed this activity but I’m not too great with the whole teaching part.

• 54    101kid.com // Jan 2, 2007 at 11:22 am

  Teaching parents

  When I had to tech my mom about D.N.A I was excited. I was shocked to find my mom didn’t know anything about D.N.A. So the teaching began. My mom understood every thing and had only 1 question. It went smoother then I thought. My mom had to work so we only got 10 minutes to work on the dog. So I have nothing to report.

• 55    sTrAwBeRrYmEnToSz // Jan 2, 2007 at 11:35 am

  WOW! This was an interesting homework assignment. My family is a trip! They all think that they kow everyyyything especially my sister so I cracked her first. I caught her at a good time …she had just gotten off the phone and was just about to eat. Meaning she was tired of talking and about to stuff her mouth. I told her everything that I knew (since I wasn’t in class for a little bit.) It worked out nce becasue some things that I didn’t know she explained to me. I explained to her about the DNA,RNA, the bases, the ladder and everything that I knew. By the end of that I thought I was going to tell my mom, but I was already tired out =].

• 56    room217 // Jan 16, 2007 at 11:53 am

  When I was doing the lab with my mom I got tired of repeating the same thing ovver and over agian but eventually my mom got the idea and did the lab pretty well. When she was doing the lab she didint ask me to explain alot of the stuff. She just asked me from time to time to explain the lab. So it started uot hard but eventually my mom understood it and understood what I was saying.

• 57    airsoft slinger // Jan 20, 2007 at 8:40 pm

  I tried to teach my mom and she was so funny. She thought that DNA was someone’s fingerprint. After a little wile though when I told here about deoxyribonucleic acids my mom started to catch on to what it was. She did okay on the lab in the end. It was hard in the beginning to get my mom to understand anything but after I wile she began to remember the stuff that she had learned in school.

• 58    Hilary Duff // Jan 30, 2007 at 11:09 am

  So I had the talk with my dad and he was very difficult to work with. I talked to him about the DNA and how it works. I told him about how only certain bases can connect with each other. I told him about how it’s a double helix and how if you stretch one piece its six feet long. The talk lasted 14 min and when I was do my dad started to talk about DNA. And he talk and talk or 31 min’s.

• 59    Earthchild // Feb 11, 2007 at 10:40 pm

  OK, well i tried to explain to my parents about DNA and genetics….. but they already knew everything. They corrected me and filled mein with more details about the parts I wasn’t to sure of. And soon enough I got into a long conversation about it with my Dad.

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