Assignment Overview
For this project milestone, you will create a podcast script that explains the roles of DNA, inheritance, evolution, and biodiversity in our environment. A podcast is an audio file that listeners can download about a topic of their choice. You will not need to create an audio file, but you will need to submit a written script that could be used for this purpose.
In this assignment, you will explain the roles of DNA, inheritance, evolution, and biodiversity in our environment in a written podcast script containing two segments. The podcast script requirements are listed here:
Podcast Segment 1 Title: Garden Variety Inheritance
Take this segment “outside,” as you walk through an imaginary vegetable garden. This will provide the backdrop for a conversation about the Punnett square and its ability to determine inheritance. Use examples from a garden to predict the development of your future vegetable crop.
Examine a plant in your garden that is exhibiting signs of infection. Break down the reproductive cycle of an RNA virus, most common for plant species, using step-by-step analysis. Close with a few helpful tips on how listeners can guard their plants from infection.
Perform an on-air experiment to determine if you are colorblind. Provide your listeners with the parent genotypes in your Punnett square so that they can follow along. This experiment will allow you the opportunity to discuss sex-linked genes and their ability to pass down family traits. Be sure to explain what the sex chromosomes are.
Podcast Segment 2 Title: It’s a Big, Bio-Diverse World Out There
Define evolutionary adaptation and provide the most interesting examples you can find to help engage the listeners.
Outline the process of natural selection. Begin with a brief history of Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection. Then provide examples of natural selection that we see every day, such as insect populations that have grown resistant to certain pesticides.
Depict a scenario in which a biologist for the Smithsonian Institution is assembling a new leopard exhibit. Take this opportunity to explain the phylogenetic tree and how it enables you to track the evolutionary history of a given species.