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Module 9: Macromolecules

Overview

The module can start with an activity in which students zooming into familiar "living" things, such as a green leaf or tree trunk, spider net or human's hair, discovering beneath polymeric chains made of familiar organic molecules, such as glucose or amino acids. Students can explore how monomers join into polymers and begin to investigate how macromolecules are put together into sub-cellular and cellular structures.

Activities

• From Monomers to Polymers (Three-activity module)
  
  
• Molecular Construction Kit: Joining Molecules Together to Make Macromolecules
  
  
• The Tree of Life's Macromolecules
  
  

Objectives and Goals

Students will be able to:

• Identify typical molecular building blocks (monomers) that form biological macromolecules. • Determine the types of atoms that make up most biopolymers. • Reason about the uniformity on the atomic level of life's molecular building blocks • Articulate where living beings obtain their monomers, the building blocks of the cell's polymers. • Build a polymer from monomers, employing the concept of "sticky points" (activated atoms on monomers) to explain the formation of linear, branching or circular polymers.

Standards

AAAS

THE LIVING ENVIRONMENT: CELLS - Every cell is covered by a membrane that controls what can enter and leave the cell.

THE LIVING ENVIRONMENT: CELLS - The genetic information encoded in DNA molecules provides instructions for assembling protein molecules.

THE LIVING ENVIRONMENT:CELLS - The work of the cell is carried out by the many different types of molecules it assembles, mostly proteins.

THE LIVING EMVIRONMENT:CELLS - Within every cell are specialized parts for the transport of materaails, energy transfer, protein building, waste disposal, information feedback, and even movement.

NSES

Life science: Heredity Molecular Basis - In all organisms, the instructions for specifying the characteristics of the organism are carried in DNA.

Life Science: The Cell - Cells store and use information to guide their functions.

Science as Inquiry - Use technology and mathemataics to improve investigations and communications.