There are many teachable moments that used to be left to a separate "let's-get-to-that-later-if-time-permits" list off to the right of our white boards. When students ask those questions and the answer is not ever given, the curiousity we seek to tap, the 'digging for deeper understanding' we claim we support, and the contributions shy people give to the class discussion can easily be stifled. With affordable, anywhere, anytime, abundant digital age we live in now, the class can easily donate seconds or a minute to taking advantage of these teachable moments.
Today my lesson was on the history of our understanding of inheritance. I wanted students to learn about racism, prejudism against women in the field of science, and the science behind our present understanding of the structure of DNA. Three times, students asked questions that helped students and me alike know more about this topic. (and I am looking up another question now before I continue....see Chargaff below)
Reference: http://kentsimmons.uwinnipeg.ca/cm1504/Image265.gif1) A woman named Rosalind Franklin had a "beautiful" x-ray crystalograph of DNA. It looks like a smudged 'X' on paper. "How did she see something about the structure in this picture?" Looking up 'Franklin Crystalography DNA', I found a clear explanation that the 'X' showed there were two helices and the widths of the lines of the 'X' being uniform showed that the two lines were uniform in length.
Reference: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikibooks/en/5/5d/Biochemcamille2.jpg2) "Franklin didn't get the nobel prize, but she got an award later..." She not only did not get any award, her real contribution was not recognized until 1968, 15 years after the discovery of DNA's structure and five years after she died of ovarian cancer.
Reference for image on left:
http://media.photobucket.com/image/Watson%20and%20Crick/Primate_bucket/WatsonJames-CrickFrancis.jpg
3) I wanted a copy of the posed picture taken of Watson and Crick, which was readily available on google.images . See the above picture on the left.
I also found it on Flickr, thanks to mmullen31. See the image on the right. I am not sure it should be in public domain because it comes from the text Unraveling the History of DNA. Notice the Flickr image does not have the quality of Google.images yet.
4) I remember hearing something about another scientist in the race to discover DNA's structure, Edwin Chargaff. He did not get the Nobel price, either, with Watson and Crick. I knew he had called Watson and Crick something like "intellectual pygmies", so I searched 'Chargaff intellectual pygmies' and got:
He [Chargaff] said later on that, "They impressed me by their extreme ignorance ... I never met two men who knew so little—and aspired to so much." Later on after the structure of DNA had been published Chargaff said, "That in our day such pygmies throw such giant shadows only shows how late in the day it has become." Larry Moran, "Sandwalk: Strolling with a Skeptical Biochemist." 23 July 2007.
In the 50s, the racial and stature slurs were equally insulting.
I guess I did not address the issue of flowware well in this discussion. I do not yet consider myself one who flows seemlessly between technological developments. It is my goal to do so to be a more connected and more appropriate teacher for students of our time.
[The comments added to this site after my posting it shed light onto why the woman Franklin did not get the Nobel prize. She was off base about the helical structure of a complementary A form of DNA. (same source)]
http://media.photobucket.com/image/Watson%20and%20Crick/Primate_bucket/WatsonJames-CrickFrancis.jpg
3) I wanted a copy of the posed picture taken of Watson and Crick, which was readily available on google.images . See the above picture on the left.
I also found it on Flickr, thanks to mmullen31. See the image on the right. I am not sure it should be in public domain because it comes from the text Unraveling the History of DNA. Notice the Flickr image does not have the quality of Google.images yet.
4) I remember hearing something about another scientist in the race to discover DNA's structure, Edwin Chargaff. He did not get the Nobel price, either, with Watson and Crick. I knew he had called Watson and Crick something like "intellectual pygmies", so I searched 'Chargaff intellectual pygmies' and got:
He [Chargaff] said later on that, "They impressed me by their extreme ignorance ... I never met two men who knew so little—and aspired to so much." Later on after the structure of DNA had been published Chargaff said, "That in our day such pygmies throw such giant shadows only shows how late in the day it has become." Larry Moran, "Sandwalk: Strolling with a Skeptical Biochemist." 23 July 2007.
In the 50s, the racial and stature slurs were equally insulting.
I guess I did not address the issue of flowware well in this discussion. I do not yet consider myself one who flows seemlessly between technological developments. It is my goal to do so to be a more connected and more appropriate teacher for students of our time.
[The comments added to this site after my posting it shed light onto why the woman Franklin did not get the Nobel prize. She was off base about the helical structure of a complementary A form of DNA. (same source)]
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