Creative Expression of Biology Reflection

For my Creative Expression of Biology, I decided to make a strand of DNA. DNA is what

got most of my attention this semester and I found out a lot about it. First of all, it’s the basis

of who you are and what you are like, which is pretty cool. I also chose DNA because I like

things to be organized and DNA is the most organized thing we learned about. In my creative

expression I color coated the different bases; (A) adenine, (T) thymine, (G) guanine, and (C)

cytosine to show how they are to be matched up.

Creative Expression of Biology

DNA holds what we are and what we will grow into. That’s because DNA holds your

genetic information, which allows you to grow, develop, and reproduce. You can compare DNA

to a blueprint, it has all the information about what you will grow into, and what you are now.

Its found in the cell nucleus in animals and the cell wall in plants. There isn’t much room in

those cells for our DNA to be stored so they are crammed into something called a

Chromosome, which we all have 46 of, 23 from our mother and 23 from our father. Because

we inherit half of our Chromosomes from each parent, we also inherit half of our DNA from

each. DNA is often replicated, during which DNA is unwound so that it can be copied. DNA is

also unwound to make proteins for other biological purposes. During this replication four types

of nitrogen bases need to match with their opposites, otherwise a mutation forms. These four

nitrogen bases are; (A) adenine, (T) thymine, (G) guanine, and (C) cytosine. The (A) and (T)
match with each other, and the (G) and (C) match with each other in DNA replication. For

example, the sequence AGCTA will be copied to be TCGAT. When all is said and done about 3

billion bases are contained in 20,000 genes, in 23 chromosomes. To go along with DNA is

something called RNA. RNA is single stranded, unlike DNA which is double stranded. RNA holds

the bases of adenine (A), uracil (U), cytosine (C), and guanine (G). there are different kinds of

RNA like; messenger RNA, ribosomal RNA, and transfer RNA. These are all used for different

things, but messenger RNA (mRNA) is used to make proteins which is crucial to us. Enzymes

read the information in a DNA molecule and transcribe it into mRNA. Then the information

found in the mRNA is translated into amino acids which tells the cell exactly how to arrange the

proteins. There is so much that DNA does for us and different uses for RNA, but that is what

stood out to me the most this semester.