If you have ever left fruit out on the counter a day or two too long, you are likely familiar with fruit flies. They can be little pests in the kitchen but they are a big help when it comes to scientific research!! In this article we will cover all the reasons why fruit flies are such a great model organism and we've included some great FREE CLASSROOM RESOURCES!
Scientists use fruit flies, Drosophila melanogaster, in their science experiments to learn more about humans. You may be thinking: “wait, fruit flies and humans are nothing alike!” When it comes to outward appearance, you are correct. But on the inside, fruit flies have very similar DNA to humans and 75% of known human disease genes have a match in the fruit fly genome! This means that scientists can study human diseases without having to experiment on humans.
Fruit flies also have a very short life span of less than two months. And they can create offspring after only 1-2 weeks of being alive. Because they can reproduce so quickly, scientists can study how traits are inherited over lots of generations in only a couple of months!
Fruit flies are also very tiny. Think about how much space you need to live and grow. Fruit flies live in vials that are less than 4 inches tall. Scientists can keep up to 100 flies in just one vial! Talk about a cramped living space.
We will often bring fruit flies into classrooms in one form or another. Sometimes we will bring petri dishes of dead flies with different mutations. Students can observe the flies under a microscope and even count the ratios of phenotypes to determine what kind of cross was done!
For particularly brave teachers, we will bring vials of live fruit flies and have students set up new vial habitats and transfer the flies. Its always a very exciting lab day!
Since we can't bring fruit flys into every classroom below are some FREE resources to use with your students. In the video, Dr. Mohammed Aiyegbo demonstrates how to transfer flies into a new vial.
Click below to download a worksheet that goes along with this video!
Looking for more?! Here are some inheritance/math lessons for middles schoolers and middle elementary students.
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