Going with the flow (of ice cream...)

Teaching in Morocco taught me to trust my gut and my talent. Lindsey - you know what you're doing! You don't need Google Slides, WiFi or ice! Everything you need to create a good lesson is right there in your brain. AND in the treats freezer at the corner store.

Let me back up...

We had planned to teaching a Forensics lesson on fingerprinting and global trends for types of fingerprints. We also planned a biology lab to extract DNA from students' saliva. The night before these two lessons were to be taught, we were fresh out of the Moroccan hammam (which I am convinced helped clear our minds to collaborate and perfect this lesson) and started going through the lesson. I had just received my genealogy results 2 days prior and it popped into my brain to merge these two experiments and incorporate my results to teach some genealogy. During the lesson, I presented to the students the history of my own heritage.

Growing up I had always thought:

50% German (mom's side), 25% Swedish and 25% Norwegian (dad's side)

My DNA results proved otherwise (mut!):

47% Swedish, 23% Norwegian, 15% German, 6% Baltic, 5% English, 3% Eastern European and 1% Finish

Students brainstormed ideas as to why my DNA was vastly different from what I always thought and we revisited the good old punnet square and the concept of chance. After this discussion, we proceeded to the DNA extraction.

My amazing host teacher, Hassan, was kind enough to gather materials for this lab. However 15 minutes before class started we realized that we didn't have ice to cool the ethanol. Hassan graciously ran from store to store searching for any form of frozen water. I was about to throw in the towel saying we could skip the DNA extraction, but Hassan persevered and grabbed a few ice cream bars. We promptly shoved the ethanol bottle in between the bars and crossed our fingers that it would be enough to cool the ethanol! By the time we got to school we unwrapped the ice cream and the bottle of ethanol was surrounded by a goopy mess of ice cream - but most importantly, it was cold! And the extraction worked beautifully.

The progression of the ethanol chilling...

As students DNA emerged from the solution in test tubes, their eyes looked amazed. This was one moment in my life that I was so glad that we did not throw in the towel. The students were so incredibly into this experiment and thrilled to be working hard on this lab. I was so incredibly happy that the experiment had worked out and I was able to expose them to this kind of hands on experience.

Upon successful extraction of their DNA, we moved onto another aspect of genealogy: types of fingerprints. I taught students the three main types of fingerprints (loop, whorl & arch), how common they are worldwide and where in the world you see a spike in the three types. Europeans tend to have a higher percentage of loops. Africans tend to have a higher percentage of whorls and Asians tend to have a higher percentage of arches. Worldwide loops are the most common (65%), followed by whorls (30%) and arches (5%). Prior to Morocco, I performed this experiment with my own Forensics class with these results:

Whorls: 25.8%

Loops: 64.2%

Arches: 10.0%

Moroccan students learned the art of fingerprinting, took and analyzed their own fingerprints. Here are their results:

Whorls: 30.0%

Loops: 59.0%

Arches: 11.0%

Showing off their extracted DNA and fingerprints!

We were amazed to see the influence of the African decent come through in the increased percentage of whorls! I was unsure about migration patterns in Morocco, as to how affected the whorl statistic would be, but it shone through.

At the end of the period, similarities differences between Americans and Moroccans were acknowledged, highlighted and celebrated. We also spoke to the fact that humans have been migrating the world for as long as we have been around.

No matter where we come from either recently or deep in our heritage, we are all humans!