We are currently looking at Genetics & Evolution with Year 10. This week we have been looking at the process of meiosis and yesterday we explored what happens when it all goes wrong. The students had lots of questions to ask about the process of creating sex cells as well as what happens during fertilisation (not just the sex bit - actually none of that! That's one thing I've noticed between girls schools and co-ed schools... definitely not as open with the questions in that domain with the other gender in the room!!).

Today we created karyotypes using gummy worms to explore how geneticists work to try to determine genetic disorders in individuals. Each group was given a ziplock back that contained a range of 'gummy worm chromosome pairs' that represented the autosomes and a selection of gummy bears that represented the sex chromosomes. They then had to pair them up, arrange them in order of descending size, work out how many pairs of chromosomes the individual has and determine whether they were a normal male/female or if they had a genetic disorder relating to their sex chromosomes. 

All they wanted to do was eat the lollies... so once they had followed all of they were asked to go to the link on their instructions to an interactive karyotyping activity that was basically the same activity, but using technology! 

Overall, the students had a great time and thoroughly enjoyed the lesson. If I was to do it again I would try to make each group different in terms of some having an autosomal disorder and others having a disorder linked to the sex chromosomes. 

You can find a link to the 'Gummy Worm Karyotypes' instructions by clicking on the link :)