This whole DNA business can be a pretty complicated subject, however there are so many amazing resources these days that it makes learning about it fairly accessible.
For DNA replication we started off with this great video which really simplifies the whole process and makes it easy to understand. I added in the enzymes as well as some other cards necessary to split apart our DNA and replicate it.
I've taken some pictures of how we applied it to our DNA game. I'm sure some of you with sharp eyes can spot my grave error on two of the bases. I just set this up quickly to take demo pictures and by the time I noticed the error I didn't want to retake all the pics. Just think of it as a mutation!
Anyhow you start of with the helices splitting things apart. I'm not going to explain the whole process here as you can just watch the above video to see how it works.
By the end we have found the extra bases to complete the new strand and have replicated our DNA. L found this a great way to really see how the whole process works.
We also did a worksheet on transcription and translation that can be found here.
L found this easy as we'd already played the transcription game which helped us to learn how the DNA is turned into RNA and then the RNA bases are read in codons(or groups of 3) to make up an animo acid. These amino acids combine together to make a protein. It all sounds very complicated but the game makes it so much simpler.
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