For this project, we were given a mystery to solve. We had many pieces of evidence that we had to analyze in order to figure out who had committed the murder, along with their motive. The final project was to present to a jury and convince them to give us a warrant for the suspects of our choice, using the evidence we had analyzed.
Carelton Comet, recently released from jail, was involved with many women, had many children, and changed his name. From this we concluded that Carelton Comet was also known as Thomas Sandstone, who also had many children with many women. Motive: Nancy Normal has Huntington’s disease because her dad had it. She also has Triple X Syndrome, which we found in her karyotype. Her Aunt Nina had a child with Thomas, but the child, Nadia, was murdered and kidnapped. Her aunt went into deep depression afterwards. Nancy's dad was killed in a “bizarre gardening accident”, and Nancy blames Thomas for the murder of her dad, cousin, and unhappiness of her family. Huntington's disease is a genetic disease that results in compulsive behavior, lack of restraint, and many other similar symptoms. Triple X syndrome, which NN also has, is a chromosomal disease that contributes to learning disabilities and delayed development. Nancy Normal has Huntington's disease, which led her to kill Carelton Comet. Nancy had been planning to kill Carelton, shown by the pre-written note with the pen belonging to her. Huntington's disease causes compulsive behavior, and when the sky darkened at the picnic, Nancy took the opportunity to kill Carelton. This compulsive behavior caused her to leave behind a lot of evidence pointing at her, such as her fingerprints and blood. Huntington's also results in a difficulty understanding things. Nancy didn't understand the death of her father or cousin, so she blamed Carelton for the destruction of her family.
Concepts: DNA - the carrier of genetic information, present in all living organisms (we looked at the DNA of the crime scene and suspects in the DNA fingerprinting) Pedigree - a diagram showing the genealogy of an individual and their ancestors to follow a specific trait or disease (we used the family stories of each suspect to create the pedigree and determine if the suspects could have Huntington's disease or Marfan's syndrome) Chromatography - the separation of a mixture by passing it through a solution where the components bleed through at different rates (we used chromatography on the pens of different suspects and the one used on the death note, then we compared the length, shape, color, and retention factor of each pens to find the match) Gel electrophoresis - inserting DNA samples and dye into an agarose gel and charging the gel with electricity, the DNA moves to the positively charged side since it is negatively charged, the DNA is then displayed in size and color order based on how it moved through the gel, these arrangements allow you to easily differentiate which DNA samples match which (NN matched CS2 and CC and SS matched CS1) Blood Typing - using anti-serums to figure out the blood type of blood samples; clumps with anti-A = Type A, anti-B = B, anti-A and anti-B = Type AB, neither = Type O (We figured out that the bloods on the knife found at the crime scene had type O and type A, and TT, GG, and NN had type A, and FF, SS, and CC had type O) DNA Fingerprinting - DNA samples found at the crime scene are compared with the suspects DNA to find a match (We took the DNA found in the blood to figure out who's blood it was (the blood from Crime Scene 1 matched CC and SS, and the blood from Crime Scene 2 matched NN) Karyotype - the arranging of an organism's chromosomes by size and number (we made karyotypes of all the suspects and crime scenes and matched the suspects to the crime scenes, along with looking for any chromosomal diseases) Fingerprinting - each person has their own unique fingerprint within one of the three types of fingerprints [whorl, loop, or arch] (we used the fingerprint from the crime scene to the suspects and NN matched the one found at the crime) Incomplete dominance - neither gene is dominant, so an intermediate effect is shown in the hybrid
Reflection: Overall I think my group and I worked extremely well together. We listened to each other which allowed us to do everything well. When I wanted to add something to the project, I asked and they immediately listened and agreed. Usually it takes a couple tries for people to listen to me. I liked this project, but I did not like how the presentation instructions were unreliably explained. My group and I finished everything we were told to do, but when we got out scores back they were lower than we expected. Apparently this was because the we didn't follow the instructions that our teacher had told other groups, but not ours. My group and I also listened to the group we did critiques with, by taking out a lot from our presentation to make it shorter. This also caused our grades to lower, because we didn't include every single little detail that was wanted. I think that in the future I will be sure to follow all the instructions, even if this means asking a lot more questions. I will also make sure I look over my part of the presentation more before we present. My group and I got marked down on our communication because we looked at our presentation notes more than the teacher liked. I think I did a good job of making sure everyone in our group was doing something. I would ask them to do some other part of the project if I saw them sitting around. I also think I did a better job of sounding confident this time. During our presentation, I made sure to speak loudly and look around the classroom. Unfortunately we didn't get marked up for this, but I think I did a much better job of this this project.