myriAn hunter Clayton County

As a biology and environmental science teacher at Mt. Zion High School in Clayton County, Myrian Hunter is always looking for creative ways to engage her students and implement the use of argument-driven inquiries (ADIs) into the curriculum.

A technology resource she incorporated this school year is The Universal Protein Resource (UniProt), a free publicly available database of protein sequence, function and variation information.

Students can use their Chromebooks to log-in to UniProt (uniport.org) to learn more about the amino acids and protein sequencing of different animals so they ultimately can discover how different living organisms evolved.

“UniProt allows you to put in different organisms or animals and then trace their amino acid sequence and compare different organisms to see which animals have commonality or common ancestors with other animals,” said Hunter, who has been a science teacher for 14 years.

In a recent science class, Hunter asked students to compare the amino acid sequencing of two different animals with that of a sperm whale. Students could choose any animals they wanted to compare to the sperm whale, and their selections ranged from a horse to a dolphin.

“They have free range to choose, so they can use their imagination. Some students picked a horse because of its size. They said a horse is big and a whale is big and the snout on a horse is kind-of squared-off like the nose portion of the whale,” said Hunter. “Others chose a dolphin because of the color and the fact that they are both in the water.”

Students worked in groups, entering their animals into the UniProt database to see how the amino acid sequencing compared to the sequencing of the sperm whale. In many cases, Hunter said, students are shocked to learn that certain animals they thought were related based on what they look like or what they eat are actually not related at all.

“The horse and the sperm whale actually had some amino acids in common. I was actually surprised by that. The dolphin and the whale, of course, had a lot in common,” said Hunter. “I like it because there isn’t a definitive answer. Students work in groups of four, so one group may choose three animals and the other could compare three totally different animals.”

Once students analyze their findings, they present what they learned about the different amino acid sequencing.

“This allows everyone to learn about more than just the animals they chose. They learn about the other animals the other students chose as well,” Hunter said. “The students really like it. They wanted to load more animals into the program to compare them. Once you pique their curiosity about something, they are determined to find out the truth. You also get to observe their thought process.”

Hunter said she is always looking for new technologies that can help students dive deeper into a subject and illustrate scientific concepts in a practical and entertaining way. One of the best things about UniProt, she said, is that – unlike many scientific resources –UniProt is free and easily accessible.

“By having access to this information, we don’t have to get a tissue sample and break it down ourselves. We can do a search and it gives us everything we need,” said Hunter. “We don’t have to worry about having the money to run these tests or carve out so many days to run a lab. I know students can get the information they need, and it’s reliable and free.”