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Ascent of the Dog:
Background Reading and Guiding Questions
Pictorial Collage of Students' Pets
This is the introductory activity to acclimate students to the Doggy DNA project. The students will be required to read the article,Ascent of the Dog, which was published in the October, 1994 edition of
Discover Magazine. This article is found in its full text form on EBSCO host.
Mestel, R. (1994, Oct). Ascent of the dog. Discover, 15, (10), 90 - 98.
General Objectives
- Familiarize students with the species concept
- Investigate the connection between DNA sequences and characteristics (phenotypes)
- Study the events in the evolution of the domesticated dog
- Make a personal connection to the program by contributing pictures of their pets (or the pet they would like to have) to a classroom collage
- Illustrate an example of natural and artificial selection
- Begin the discussion on the application of genome mapping
- Familiarize students with the meaning and use of microsatellites
Materials
Pictures of pets contributed by students (students who don't have pets could bring in a picture of a pet they would like to have)
Location to display pets
Copy of the article, "The Ascent of the
Dog" FOOTNOTE WITH CITATION
Guiding Questions
Process and Procedures
- Students should bring in pictures of their pets or if they don't have pets, a picture of a pet they would like to have.
- A selected area should display the pet pictures
- At this point the teacher could begin a discussion about how all the pets are similar and different (or assign for homework the following questions). After looking at the collage, the teacher might ask the
students if some pets are more similar to each other and why, or more different and why.
- Having already studied the concept of DNA, some students may say that the dogs are more similar to each other than they are to the cats, for example. This discussion should generate ideas about how
organisms differ and the teacher can begin to discuss the idea of grouping similar organisms into groups like species (students should most likely have already studied classification in some format and have
already heard the term species before)
- Students can be assigned the reading for homework and also the guiding questions. Alternatively, the guiding questions could be discussed in class after reading the article for homework or in class.
Guiding questions:
- How could Dmitry Belynev create the “tamed fox-dogs”? Explain what principle is behind his results?
- What characteristics gave the dog-ancestor, Leptocyan, an advantage over other species like the borophagines? Why was this characteritic an advantage? What happened to the borophagines? Why?
- Why are there different breeds of dogs? (Use the information in the article and your knowledge about genetics and reproduction)
- What is a microsatellite? How are microsatellites used to determine the genetic sequences of certain characteristics?
- What is the value of mapping the canine genome?
- Whose DNA, the dogs’ or the wolves', has been more successful? Explain.
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