Project: Life From Scratch
What We're Going to Learn and Why it Matters
Somewhere in the Universe, life must have arisen from scratch—from random assemblages of atoms and molecules. Chemically speaking, that’s all that we or other organisms are—an assemblage of atoms and molecules. If that’s the case, then why are we so different from rocks or air or a puddle of water? They’re just atoms and molecules.
Well into the nineteenth century, scientists believed that there was something fundamentally different about living matter: that it was imbued with a mysterious life force, that the rules of regular chemistry somehow didn’t apply to it, or that life contained some non-physical entity that allowed it to make exceptions to the regular chemical rules.
This idea gradually lost favor in the scientific community as scientists were able to start synthesizing substances in their laboratories that we had previously thought that only life could make: urea, sugar, aspirin, amino acids. It turned out that there was nothing unusual about the molecules of life except that they were dizzyingly complicated. [However, vitalism still persists in non-scientific pursuits like homeopathy, Ayurveda (doshas), yoga (prana), Chinese medicine (chi or qi), and Star Wars (Use the force, Luke!).]
You’ve studied chemistry in depth. (I know because it’s a pre-requisite for this course.) You’ve learned about the qualities of life’s unique molecules (organic, we call them) in our sophomore course. Now, let’s deepen and extend that knowledge through an open-ended challenge.
The purpose of this challenge is to both review what you already know about biochemistry and extend your knowledge into its deliciously complicated details.
The Challenge
1.Build a hypothetical organism from scratch.
2.Use only atomic and molecular building blocks.
3.Arrange them in any way that adheres to the laws of chemistry and physics.
The Product
You will describe your solution to the above challenge in a form that is up to you. In the past successful projects have been conveyed as two-dimensional posters, slide shows, and the transcript of a late night talk show interview. I am looking forward one day seeing this as an interpretive dance. It could be almost anything.
Well into the nineteenth century, scientists believed that there was something fundamentally different about living matter: that it was imbued with a mysterious life force, that the rules of regular chemistry somehow didn’t apply to it, or that life contained some non-physical entity that allowed it to make exceptions to the regular chemical rules.
This idea gradually lost favor in the scientific community as scientists were able to start synthesizing substances in their laboratories that we had previously thought that only life could make: urea, sugar, aspirin, amino acids. It turned out that there was nothing unusual about the molecules of life except that they were dizzyingly complicated. [However, vitalism still persists in non-scientific pursuits like homeopathy, Ayurveda (doshas), yoga (prana), Chinese medicine (chi or qi), and Star Wars (Use the force, Luke!).]
You’ve studied chemistry in depth. (I know because it’s a pre-requisite for this course.) You’ve learned about the qualities of life’s unique molecules (organic, we call them) in our sophomore course. Now, let’s deepen and extend that knowledge through an open-ended challenge.
The purpose of this challenge is to both review what you already know about biochemistry and extend your knowledge into its deliciously complicated details.
The Challenge
1.Build a hypothetical organism from scratch.
2.Use only atomic and molecular building blocks.
3.Arrange them in any way that adheres to the laws of chemistry and physics.
The Product
You will describe your solution to the above challenge in a form that is up to you. In the past successful projects have been conveyed as two-dimensional posters, slide shows, and the transcript of a late night talk show interview. I am looking forward one day seeing this as an interpretive dance. It could be almost anything.
Predict
(3:00 minutes)
How do you think life arose? What molecules were involved? What arrangements did they form? What processes led to them being arranged that way? Remember that this is the speculation phase. You are totally encouraged to make stuff up.?
Answer on Google Classroom.
How do you think life arose? What molecules were involved? What arrangements did they form? What processes led to them being arranged that way? Remember that this is the speculation phase. You are totally encouraged to make stuff up.?
Answer on Google Classroom.
Small Group Work: Define the Problem
(10:00 minutes)
Break the big problem down into sub-problems. Think backwards.
Break the big problem down into sub-problems. Think backwards.
Whole Group Consensus Discussion
(10:00 minutes)
In your small group, prepare a three minute presentation on your assigned macroevolutionary pattern that
In your small group, prepare a three minute presentation on your assigned macroevolutionary pattern that
- explains the basic ideas in terms that a distracted 5th grader could understand
- provides an example to illustrate the idea
- discusses the implications of the ideas or explains why they might be important
Individual Summary
(4:00 minutes)
Take a moment to post individually on Google classroom and reflect on your learning in this lesson. You may do this in several ways.
Take a moment to post individually on Google classroom and reflect on your learning in this lesson. You may do this in several ways.
- Summarize what you've learned about macroevolutionary trends in three or four key ideas.
- Speak briefly about how this learning has changed your understanding of evolution.
- Reflect on how this knowledge might be important.
- List questions or confusions about this that still remain.
- Any combination of the above.