In the first part of the morning, the students learned about transcription and translation of a gene from the DNA. Then, the instructors taught them about gene regulation. Specifically, they taught the students how the lac operon gene is regulated.
In the second half of the morning, the students went over the circulatory system. They also covered what is needed for a healthy circulatory system through discussion and hands-on activities.
In the afternoon, the students made a model of the human circulatory system using common items you can find at home such as a water bottle or a a balloon. This was a great activity to start getting the students to think analogically. By using household items, students were able to exercise their creativity as well as learn what types of things constitute a model. While these models were great beginning models, the students have learned that a perfect model is a wrong model plus corrections so they worked to improve upon this by using a computer program. Vensim, the computer program used today, was that improvement on their household item model. The students modeled the human circulatory system using mathematical equations that increased their understanding of how it worked.