After receive the following query from a junior high teacher in PA, L.J.
Singleton decided to share this information with other teachers who might
be interested in tying in her cloning series, REGENERATION, with a science
curriculum.
Dear Ms. Singleton:
I am a 7th grade science teacher & I am trying to make this subject
more appealing to my students. I am using your 1st edition of the
REGENERATION series for summer reading. This past school year, I had
my students do a research project on cloning & I feel that they
really learned a lot from doing the work on the Internet. With this
in mind, I want to know if you have any advice that would connect to
this book and the learning process?
L.J. Singleton answered:
I am SO honored you're using my book with your 7th graders. Locally I talk
at a few junior high career days and I find this age group an enjoyable
challenge.
When I go into classrooms, I share with the kids some of the more unusual
clone research facts I've found, such as a fun website:
<www.missyplicity.com> about the potential for a dog being cloned.
I also play a "Who Wants to Clone a Millionaire" game with the kids with
some of the following cloning fact questions (I can send you a full list of
quiz & bookmarks for your class if you email me <ljscheer@inreach.com>
WHO WANTS TO CLONE A MILLIONAIRE --
SAMPLE CLONE QUESTIONS
1. What animal has not been cloned?
A) Cow B) sheep
C) Dog D) Pig
2. What do you get when you clone a jelly fish and a rat?
A) Furry fish B) glowing rat
C) poisonous rat
D) A fish with a long tail
3. What prehistoric mammal do scientists plan to clone?
A) Pterodactyl B) Dodo bird
C) Saber tooth tiger
D) Wholly Mammoth
4. What animal is being cloned to offer compatible human organ transplants?
A) sheep B) Cow
C) Monkey D) Pig
5. What would NOT be identical in your human clone?
A) Blood type B) Hair color
C) Fingerprints D) Eye color
6. What is a xenotransplant?
A) Bone marrow transplant
B) animal to human transplant
C) plant to animal transplant
D) Xena and Hercules clones
7. What's the name of the first cloned sheep?
A) Dolly B) Ditto
C) Ditz D) Woolma
8. The Regeneration series was originally called:
A) Clone Zone B) Lab Brats
C) Sci-Clones D) Clones R Us
* I ask students is how it would feel to find out they were cloned. What
would they wonder about? Would they consider the person they were cloned
from their parent or twin? What would make them different from their clone?
* Discuss the ethics of cloning; how do you decide what type of person is
the ideal? Brown-haired or blonde? blue-eyed or dark-eyed? Skinny or
chubby? Would only the smart kids be cloned? How do kids with
disabilities fit in?
* Ask students to look around the room and decide which personality and
physical traits they'd close for cloning. And how would the kids left with
unflattering characteristics feel? Is this heading for a superior race of
humans? It's already being done with animals, perfecting the "ideal"
qualities and enhancing favorable abilities.
On the positive side, there are many scientific uses for cloning, such as
the growing area for cloning body parts for replacement and research that
may eventually cure degenerative diseases.
I hope this helps! I'm a writer, not a scientist -- but I have had fun
researching this topic. There's a terrific Discovery Channel show about
Cloning the Woolly Mammoth that would be a great thing for the kids to see.
In fact, if my publishers ever want a 6th REGENERATION, I plan to clone a
saber-tooth tiger...but with some mishaps (g).