Using a Mystery Story in a genetics lessons
Later on in the year, my students will be learning genetics. I will be using a modern mystery story that is trying to trace the origins of children who were separated from their parents during a war. "Finding the Lost Children" is a true story about trying to find the children separated from their parents during a war. Most of the children were very young at the time of the separation and could not tell who their parents were. The evidence students will use will be based on blood typing, so students will learn how blood type is inherited. Basic blood typing can be used to rule out suspects or victims, but DNA found in the blood must be used for definitive proof of a person's identity. Students will use a simulated activity to match some of the children with their parents based on blood samples. Ethical issues will also be raised in this case because the missing children had been adopted and been well taken care of by other families.
We will also look again at fingerprinting even though fingerprints are not genetic. Even identical twins do not have the same fingerprint patterns, but it will be part of our discussion on what is inherited and what is not. Students will learn the basic patterns of all fingerprints and have the opportunity to observe their own with magnifying glasses and make impressions of them. Fingerprinting was first used in England in the 1800s as a means to prove guilt. It began being used in the United States in the early 1900s and is still used today as a common way to identify suspects. Sherlock Holmes made use of fingerprint evidence in many of his cases, so fingerprinting will be used as another piece of evidence in the discussion about modern crime solving's dependence on old techniques.
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