MODULE 5 ASSIGNMENT: Educational Videos

 

Summary of the video:

It’s commonly known that humans’ DNA share a lot of similarity with other living beings’ DNA. Humans DNA share 50 percent similarity with bananas, 80 percent with dogs, and 99 percent with chimpanzee. In reality, the human’s and chimpanzee’s DNA doesn’t sync up as easily as it sounds. First of all, human and chimpanzee has different numbers of chromosomes. Humans have 23 chromosomes while the chimpanzee got 24 chromosomes. Secondly, tiny mutations exist throughout the genes. Thirdly, researches ignored 25 percent of humans’ DNA and 18 percent of chimpanzees’ DNA when comparing them. Most importantly, small differences in DNA do not correlates with the phenotype of the creature. It means that small changes in DNA can lead to either big differences or small differences. Same logic also applies to big changes in DNA. Therefore, it’s important to realize that the percent difference and similarities between our DNA and others don’t carry too much meanings.

 

Explanation of how the video supplements or enhance your learning on the topic:

The video did a fine job in explaining the concept of comparing DNA and how DNA impacts phenotype. The video did it mainly by using intuitive images and analogies to present and explain complicated ideas.

For example, when explaining how the scientists compared the humans’ DNA with others, the video used scrolls as an analogy of DNA. By doing this, many other analogies could also be used to explain the comparing process. Chapters were used as an analogy as different chromosomes. The differences in words and sentences were used as analogy of mutations in DNA. And so on. These analogy helped me greatly in understanding the complicated biology ideas. When the video tried to emphasize the fact that DNA difference does not correlate with phenotype differences. Instead of stating the fact directly, it used real life examples combined with pictures to show the fact to the viewer directly. In this way, the message became more direct and easy to memorize for the viewers.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *