Discussion Page
The following question was asked in a homework assignment for Harvard’s LS1a course: An Integrated Introduction to the Life Sciences. Faculty: Erin O’Shea, Daniel Kahne, Robert Lue
On the following page, create a freehand drawing or series of drawings to explain to a high school senior the problem of achieving a high enough effective concentration of reactants for a chemical reaction to occur, and how the cell solves this problem at one step of the Central Dogma using the specific example of either eukaryotic transcription initiation or the RNA splicing reaction.
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I think that this drawing could benefit from some more textual explanation. Although it is interesting how the student saves the hassle of writing the actual nucleotide sequence. It looks like they did this as a way of simplifying, though I suppose it could also be because they didn’t know which nucleotides to use... but I doubt it. I really don't see how they make their answer relevant to the "concentration of reactants" part of the question. I don't think they address this explicitly enough.
– K. Stecker
– G. Xiong
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This is a very good step-wise explanation. I like how they relate it to RNA splicing at the end after explaining how the concentration of reactants affects reaction speed in multiple ways. Very neat as well and easy to follow.
– K. Stecker
– G. Xiong
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To participate in the conversation, please email me your comments.
I like how this student uses the example of importance of orientation and importance of proximity. I found the mention of "no need to run into each other" (in the third box) a little but confusing, but see how tying "charlie and lucy" (RNA Polymerase and Transcription Factors) would help with the chemical reaction. It is helpful that the student uses one slide of usual scientific diagram to help explain.
– K. Stecker
I also agree that the scientific slide was helpful. What really got me was how accurately drawn the peanuts characters were - this student is an artist!
– G. Xiong
