Step 4: Symposium and Cause & Effect

Students who have been studying alleles of the same disorder meet in a "symposium" to compare their findings.

1. To prepare for the symposium, have students fill out the Cause and Effect section of the lab notebook for their assigned allele. Creating these statements should help them summarize the major features of their allele and disorder.
2. Next, have students who studied alleles of the same disorder meet and fill out the similarities and differences chart that is the Symposium section of the Lab Notebook. In comparing their alleles, students should refer to:
• Their Cause & Effect statements
• Any other relevant section in their lab notebooks

Note: Students should find that while the overall effects of the disease-causing alleles at the whole-organism level may be similar, there are also differences. For example:

• Each allele is different at the DNA level, because they came about through different mutations.
• Each allele codes for a protein with a different amino acid sequences, leading to changes in how the protein functions.
• Some alleles of the same gene can affect different cell and tissue types, leading to a different set of symptoms at the organism level.

Students should be able to connect molecular-level details to observable effects at the tissue and whole-organism levels. The Cause & Effect statements should help them with this.

3. If you wish, have each disorder group share information with the whole class. Here are some ideas:
• A gallery walk of the similarities and differences charts created for each disorder during the Symposium
• A PowerPoint presentation about the disorder at the protein, cellular, tissue, organ and organism levels, including main differences between the alleles studied
• A "research poster" summarizing the disorder at the protein, cellular, tissue, organ and organism levels, including main differences between the alleles
• Oral presentations about how their assigned allele causes the disorder