Mutations and Codons!

     This week, I learned about mutations and was introduced to the topic of codons. Codon is involved in both DNA and RNA. Within that, codons are a sequence of three nucleotides that encode a particular amino acid. To the right of this paragraph is a codon chart that shows all of the different elements, start and stop motions, and all of the DNA and RNA strands. I found this chart to be extremely helpful, along with examples that were given in class. Mutations is a topic that I have been familiar with, but not a master at. I did not realize how many effects that mutations can have: 

• The majority mutations are neutral! 
• There are beneficial or harmful mutations. 
• New Versions of proteins help organisms adapt to their environment increasing an organism’s chances of surviving or reproducing (example: bacteria mutations in the presence of antibiotic drugs).
• A genetic disease syndrome, or other abnormal condition caused by a mutation in one or more genes.

    I can apply what I have learned to my future teaching by having a better knowledge of what goes into genes. This is important to know when it comes to being a teacher who is educating young ones who are all different and might not understand why, but also when it comes to being a woman who sees a future with a bunch of little kiddos running around. I need to understand all of this knowledge just for these reasons alone, and maybe to understand myself and those around me too!

    The parts of this lab that I found clear was the information in which we had been touching upon in the past couple of weeks as well. For example, the difference between phenotypes and genotypes. Genotypes are the the combination of alleles that they possess for a specific gene. It is directly inherited from parents. Phenotype has observable characteristics and relates back to the genotype. What was confusing for me, was the simulationsthat we did. They did not make sense to me becauseI was not full understanding what the simulation was showing me. Down below is pictures of an update on our plant and the mutation packet we did today!