The Joy of Biochemistry Mini (Edible) Labs!

Biochemistry is a hard unit for so many students. I previously wrote about this last year around this time. We just finished our unit, and I am waiting on the edge of my seat to see their test results.

I took a different approach to teaching it this year. I found students really struggled the most with macromolecules. There is so much information and it is easy to get it all jumbled together in their brain. For that section, I decided to give each macromolecule its own day and to really focus on understanding that one thing all day. Hopefully I will see the benefits of this in their scores!

I taught the macromolecules in order based on the elements they are made of: CHO, CHO (1:2:1), CHONS, and CHONP. This probably makes no sense to some of you, but the main idea is that I tried to find the most logical progression through these four macromolecules and started with the simplest: Lipids, Carbohydrates, Proteins, and Nucleic Acids.

Each day was roughly structured like this:
1. Notes (Super short -- maybe five sentences)
2. Label Diagram and Color Code
3. Mini-Lab
4. Vocabulary Work

My favorite part of this whole system was the mini-labs! We did them together as a class -- no formal write up or questions for them to answer. We orally reviewed the ideas constantly as they were working on the lab. It made the material hands-on, memorable, and in some cases -- edible!

I think my students favorite mini lab we did was probably the mini enzyme lab. We set this up the day before we actually talked about enzymes. I presented them with a cute little story about messed up jello in the cafeteria -- was it caused by the canned pineapple or fresh pineapple? The students could each choose which type of jello they wanted to test in their cup. They wrote their name on their cup, along with what type they chose, and we put them in the fridge over night.

Fresh vs. Canned

Labeled Cups in the Fridge

The next day, they were so excited and anxious to see their jello. I passed out their cups, and some of them were shocked and disgusted that their beloved fresh pineapple didn't allow the jello to set and they had a runny watery mess.

It set up a memorable experience for them to recall how an enzyme becomes denatured (in this case, the heat in the canning process). The enzyme in fresh pineapple, bromelin, breaks down the collagen in jello and doesn't allow it to set into a firm matrix, but the canned pineapple has been heated, and the enzymes denatured, so it is able to set without issue.

The lab maybe took 15 minutes of class time, yet was something we could reference and talk about everytime we talked about enzymes and allowed students with a reference point for all of the concepts. I declare it a success.

For my favorite blog readers, I will give you a quick run down of all six mini-labs I did for the Biochemistry unit for FREE! Just click the link to view! The mini-labs are also included in my Biochemistry Unit Pack on my Teachers Pay Teachers store!