DNA, Chromosomes, Genes, and Traits: An Intro to Heredity

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The week before the 1st day of my first year of teaching…wow, over a decade ago…was

an exciting time.

It was also stressful because I’m a bit of a perfectionist---but a bit of a messy,

unable to decorate my classroom kind of perfectionist---actually maybe I’m not a perfectionist.

I wanted to make my classroom inviting and exciting and…I really wanted my students

to walk in and think, “This is AMAZING.”

I could never make it look like what I imagined up.

But, the most amazing thing did happen in the week to follow.

I knew a colleague who had a friend who had a son who was going to college-confusing-

but anyway that son could not take his pet snake to college with him.

Some rule about dorms and snakes.

My colleague asked, “Would you like it?

They said they’d give you the cage and everything; it could be a classroom pet.”

I didn’t even have to think about it.

Of course.

So Spike, a Texas rat snake, became a classroom pet, an amazing, popular one at that.

He was friendly---well, for a snake… he’d let you hold him and not bite.

That year, I was the only one in the science wing with a pet snake and I’m pretty sure

there were some people that wondered what was the point.

Well, I’m big on a relevance so anytime I would teach a biology concept, I found some

way to work in Spike.

Predation?

Well, let’s talk about Spike’s appetite for rats.

Mitosis?

Let’s talk about why Spike even needs to make more cells.