Classroom Resources

This activity builds on information presented in the short film Genes as Medicine. Students interpret actual pedigrees to determine the inheritance pattern of Leber congenital amaurosis (LCA), an inherited form of blindness. They also examine protein sequence data to explore mutations that can cause LCA.

This activity explores images of animals with a mutation that affects coloration, which serve as phenomena for learning about skin color genetics and evolution.

This interactive module explores how CRISPR-Cas9 technology works and the many ways in which scientists are using it in their research.

This activity explores the content and research presented in the short film Genes as Medicine, which tells the story of how scientists succeeded in developing a gene therapy for a type of congenital blindness.

This interactive module explores niche partitioning, a mechanism that enables similar species of animals to coexist.

This video describes the case of a patient with retinitis pigmentosa (RP), a progressive disease that leads to blindness, and how physician-scientist Dr. Ed Stone approached the search for the causal mutation.

This film describes the scientific principles and the research efforts involved in the development of a gene therapy for a congenital form of blindness, and how a young patient benefited from this medical breakthrough.

This video describes how scientists silence different genes in regenerating planaria to study the process of regeneration at the molecular level.

This interactive module uses the central dogma as a model for exploring how modern molecular biology technologies can be used to treat different genetic conditions.

This multipart activity is designed to give students a firm understanding of genetic profiling using short tandem repeats (STRs), which is a process used by forensics labs around the world.

This hands-on activity allows students to analyze DNA sequences of Ebola viruses. Students use these sequences to track the virus’s spread during the 2013–2016 Ebola outbreak in West Africa.

This video describes the process by which a line of genetically modified mosquitoes was engineered to reduce populations of wild mosquitoes.