GENETIC ENGINEERING WEBQUEST
Ms. Carter – Gunderson High School
Bioengineered Foods?
INTERACTIVE: Engineering a Crop: Transgenic Manipulation
Read the Background Essay and answer these questions:
- Cross-breeding is a type of selective breeding. Explain how it works.
- Scientists use “transgenic manipulation” to produce organisms with desirable characteristics. Think of it as designing the perfect organism. How do they do it?
PLAY the INTERACTIVE and answer these questions:
- List the materials needed
- LIST and EXPLAIN the steps of transgenic manipulation.
- What is a “vector’?
- What was the purpose of using the herbicide?
VIDEO: Classical Versus Transgenic Breeding
Read the Background Essay information, watch the video and answer these questions:
- Selective breeding is also called “classical breeding.” Explain “selective breeding.”
- Explain the similarities and differences between “selective breeding” and “genetic engineering”
- What does GMO stand for?
- LIST the benefits of GMOs
- LIST and explain the four major public concerns regarding GMOs
- For what kind of characteristics have food crops been selectively bred?
- What are some examples of harmful effects of selective breeding.
Video: Bt Corn
Read “Background Essay” first, watch the video and answer these questions:
- What dos Bt stand for?
- Why/how do scientists use Bt in plants?
- Using Bt toxin in plants has some “unintended effects.” LIST and EXPLAIN those effects.
- How will these “unintended effects” affect evolution?
- What are “refuges”?
- How is Bt introduced into the genes of corn? Video
- How is this process called?
- How is Bt used differently for organic farming than in biotech corn? Video
- How could the use of Bt in biotech corn impact the use of Bt for organic farming?
Video: Super Salmon
Read the Background Essay, watch the video and answer these questions:
- What does “transgenic mean”?
- What has been done to the Atlantic Salmon and why?
- What seems to be the problem as presented by scientists Muir and Howard in 1999?
- What are the concerns consumers have regarding transgenic organisms?
- What allows transgenic salmon to grow in winter? ( questions 5-8 are from the video)
- What are some possible consequences of transgenic salmon escaping from their pens into the ocean populations?
- How might transgenic salmon affect the evolution of other salmon populations?
- Do you thing the FDA should give Aqua Bounty permission to grow and sell transgenic salmon? Why or why not?
GENETIC ENGINEERING: CLONING
Animal Cloning 101
Read the Background Essay and answer these questions:
- What is reproductive cloning?
- Explain the 2 techniques used in reproductive cloning.
- What are some of the problems in cloning animals?
PLAY the INTERACTIVE and answer these questions:
- What is a clone? Examples of clones
- What is cell differentiation?
- LIST the steps used in “The Creation of Dolly”
- How is the method used to clone a mouse different from the method used to clone Dolly?
Click and Clone: MIMI Mouse
In this Interactive, you’ll be cloning a mouse using the Somatic Nuclear Transfer method.
PLAY the interactive and answer these questions:
- LIST and EXPLAIN the 6 steps of cloning used here.
2. What color was the baby mouse? Why?
