The Case of the Crown Jewels has two parts:A classroom activity that allows students to explore how the unique sequence of bases in DNA can be used to identify individuals.A laboratory activity that allows students to use DNA restriction analysis to determine if one of the two suspects were at a fictitious crime scene.If you do not have electrophoresis lab equipment, you can just do the paper activity in Part 1 and still teach students about the different concepts related to DNA Fingerprinting.  

DNA Interactive is a great website with interactive lessons about genetics, biotechnology and DNA. Created by the DNA Learning Center, the website allows students to learn the basics of DNA and genetic manipulation through interactive modules, articles and mini-games. Additionally, there are teacher lessons, activities and answer keys available on the website that can be modified to fit your curriculum.

Students perform an activity similar to the childhood “telephone” game in which each communication step represents a biological process related to the passage of DNA from one cell to another. This game tangibly illustrates how DNA mutations can happen over several cell generations and the effects the mutations can have on the proteins that cells need to produce. Next, students use the results from the “telephone” game (normal, substitution, deletion or insertion) to test how the mutation affects the survivability of an organism in the wild. Through simple enactments, students act as “predators” and “eat” (remove) the organism from the environment, demonstrating natural selection based on mutation.

Students learn about mutations to both DNA and chromosomes, and uncontrolled changes to the genetic code. They are introduced to small-scale mutations (substitutions, deletions and insertions) and large-scale mutations (deletion duplications, inversions, insertions, translocations and nondisjunctions). The effects of different mutations are studied as well as environmental factors that may increase the likelihood of mutations. A PowerPoint® presentation and pre/post-assessments are provided.