When I was in high school, my Academic League team had a historical figures night, and I dressed up like Rosalind Franklin. This was in the early 2000s, and most people I encountered weren't familiar with her. If you are reading this, you likely do know who she is and why she is so important in the world of science. You might not know that today, July 25, is Rosalind Franklin's birthday! To celebrate this pioneering female scientist, we want to highlight her achievements and provide you with some (FREE) resources you can use in your classroom to celebrate all things Rosalind.
Before we get into her contributions to the world of science, I want you to take a look at this image:
What is it? Right, a circle (of course!). What if I say that the circle is just one view of a 3D object? Would you be able to identify the object? Much harder now. Let’s take a look at this object from a new perspective:
Right! It’s a pencil! It is only obvious after looking at it from another perspective.
Let’s play again. Check out this next image:
I know, I know. It’s another circle, but this time there is a circle inside the circle. Do you think it’s still a pencil? Probably not. But you probably need more information. Let’s look at it from a different angle:
Is it obvious now that it is a water bottle?
My point is that it can be difficult to fully understand the 3D structure of an object if we can only see it from one perspective. This is exactly how Rosalind Franklin contributed to our understanding of the shape of DNA: she looked at it from another perspective. Franklin used a cutting-edge (at the time) technology called X-ray crystallography to take a photograph of a DNA molecule, famously named “Photo 51”. This image provided an entirely new perspective of the DNA model that had never been seen. It was this work that led James Watson and Francis Crick to fully understand the double helix structure of DNA. While Watson and Crick went on to win a Nobel Prize for their work, Franklin was left uncredited, despite her work and insightful interpretation being foundational to the breakthrough.
To recognize her important work and her ability to see things in new ways (one of the six creative behaviors), here is a fun activity you can try with your students (see downloadable worksheet at the end):
Have students pick an object in the classroom without touching it. On the front of the paper, they draw the top angle of the object. After completing a drawing from one perspective, other students in the group can guess what the object is.
Once the guesses have been recorded, students can draw the second perspective of the same object on the back of the paper. Group members can now revise their guesses.
You could even collect class data on how many guesses were correct on the first try compared to the second try!
Want even more classroom resources? Here is a reading and questions set on Rosalind Franklin at different grade levels:
Need even MORE DNA resources! Check out our previous blog post to download a template to make origami DNA models!
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