Biology: DNA: Recipe for life

This week's topic was DNA, so naturally we made 3 batches of chocolate chip cookies. Confused?
Let me explain. We started by reviewing a recipe, and then the kids were divided into 3 groups, each of whom was given a slightly different version. Some of the differences involved spelling mistakes, some were missing parts of or entire words, and some had slightly different measurements. We baked cookies from each of these recipes and discussed what if any effects these different versions produced. With the recipes the kids used, the cookies all came out pretty much the same. This in itself was an interesting result. In addition, we agreed that certain typos would have yielded significantly different cookies, like say adding 1 teaspoon of flour instead of 1 cup, or adding 2 legs in place of 2 eggs.

DNA is essentially the recipe for life. How this recipe gets translated into different kinds of "cookies" (personally, I prefer oatmeal) will be our topic for the next few weeks.

FYI: I sent home each kid with a baggie of some of the unused dough, so check their bags before this evolves into an entirely different experiment.