Apologia Biology: Carbohydrates, Lipids, and Proteins Lab

BTW, this exercise coincides with the Organic Chemistry section in Module 5 of the Apologia textbook.). The class is focusing on the biomolecules.  I plan to teach Chemistry next year to most of the class.  I’ll teach them about the Periodic table, Iona, molecules, and balancing equations then.  So, the kids are learning a bit of biochemistry.


Once the kids finish the Biomolecules exercise, they'll work on the lab, the detection of carbohydrates, proteins, and lipids.  The Bio class will use these tests. (Here are photos.)  Next week, we have two classes, both of which will be this lab.  The goal is to understand what carbohydrates, lipids, and proteins are.  Here's hoping for good results.

Apologia Biology: Designer Baby Project Links

Here are the links:

Chinese Scientists are Creating CRISPR Babies

How CRISPR works

What the Church Teaches about IVF

Begotten Not Made

In Vitro Fertilization Side Effects and Risks

Embryo Adoption

Embryo Adoption Moral Option. (Frankly, I’m still uncertain about the morality of Snowflake adoption.  I believe the issue is ‘morally unresolved’ according to Church teachings.)

Genetic Details of Three Parent Baby

UK Three Parent Baby

Switched Embryos

Embryos Destroyed

Savior Siblings

More on Savior Siblings

Article about Charlie, a ‘savior sibling’

Designer Babies

Ethics of Designer Babies

Apologia Biology: Designer Baby Project

My class is working through biochemistry right now.  I’m prepping a project, Designer Babies.  So far, I started a scoring rubric and have amassed a number of links which are germane.  This article, “Ethics of Designer Babies” is a good place to begin.  Below is the announcement on my Google Classroom page.  As a devote Catholic, I follow Church teachings.  But, I believe the children should struggle through these thorny issues.  As a mother, my heart grieves for infertile couples and families with a sick child.  I firmly believe these are moral issues, not merely controversial ideas that make interesting ethical debates.  One apect is the fear of creating a class of ‘genetically elite’ children rather than the millions of embryos destroyed during IVF.   It appears creating  a ‘genetic elite’  supersedes all of the moral issues. So, my class is going to prepare blogs.  Below is the overview.  I’ll post links in the next post.  Once, we begin, I’ll post screen shots of class submissions.

Update: The project will also include a concept map created with software.

The next big project is to create a blog describing the Roman Catholic perspective on Assisted Reproductive Techniques,  Recently, China published information about babies who have undergone gene-editing, Designer babies.  This project examines invitro fertilization and why the Roman Catholic Church forbids these measures.  (Snowflake or embryo adoption is considered ‘morally unresolved’.)  My goal is for the class to gain a better understanding of Church teachings in light of these controversial methods.

Designer Baby
1.  What are common sources for infertility?
2. Define all terms.
3. What are the inherent issues associated with a designer baby?  Think broadly.  Consider gender, IQ, racial, health selection, Downs Syndrome, etc.
4. In vitro fertilization opens the door to gene editing, selective fetal reduction,  preimplantation embryonic testing, and ‘savior siblings’.  Explain.
5. Why is embryonic donation or Snowflake adoptions ‘morally unresolved’?
6. The goal is to understand a host of controversial issues in light of the Catholic Church.  (This is also an exercise as part of your formation.)
7. Students will create a series of blog posts: a minimum of ten posts, three videos, ten links, and ten photos.  Each blog post must contain an least one paragraph of explanation and opinion.

Apologia Biology: Biomolecules (Module 5–Organic Chemistry)

Yet another update...We have snow.  The kids may never finish working on their molecules.


Quick update: This is going to take awhile to finish.  But it’s so important!  I want them to understand complete carbohydrates are formed from glucose and sucrose is the product of glucose and fructose.  I believe this foundation is key to understand before tackling complete structures such as DNA.  We’ll be working through these structures at least one more class and likely two.

Update: Here is another molecular worksheet if your kit doen’t provide one.  The website allows parents to request a key.). Frankly, I prefer the Labaids materials in their kit.


We need to do a little chemistry, beginning with biomolecules.  Our class is using this kit with the handout in the kit.  This exercise takes forever.  Any molecule set works!  Since there are 19 kids in the class, I ordered the Molecules of Life kit.  If you are working alone, this inexpensive kit works perfectly.  Goodwill (shopgoodwill.com) frequently has nicer molecule kits like this one.

So, what is the class doing?  The kids are working through six pages of lab instructions.  The process is to build the molecules (carbohydrates, lipids, and proteins) and then answer questions about the molecules.  Instead of a lecture on biomolecules, the kids learn on the job.  My role is to help them see how molecules, such as glucose, fructose, and galactose have the same type and number of atoms in different structures.  The kids combine monosaccharides or single sugars into dissaccarides, such as sugar or sucrose--slowly!  Once we build and analyze, we'll do a a lab which tests carbohydrates, lipids, and proteins.