Teacher Lesson One
Culturing techniques, external anatomy,
and the life cycle of Drosophila melanogaster

Student will manipulate flies, examine their external anatomy, begin a fly journal and make cultures of wild type flies.

Materials:

1.  Stereomicroscope
2.  Anesthetizing system
3.  Paint brush
4.  Funnel, culture tubes with either media in them or dehydrate media available for students to use
5.  Vials of wild-type flies with mature adults, eggs, larvae and pupa. These may be bought from a biological supply store.  However, it is cheaper and quite easy to make enough cultures for each student group. 

Buy wild type cultures (this is also a good time to buy mutant cultures).  When they arrive, immediately separate them into new vials, adding a total of 8-10 males and females in each.  You should be able to make 4-6 vials from one bought culture.  Allow 12-14 days after culturing for the vials to exhibit each stage of fly development.

Where to buy flies

Students should work in groups of 2-3 for this and subsequent lessons, however each should keep their own journal.  Throughout the lessons, leading questions are asked of students – these should be answered.  In addition, encourage students to generate a list of questions as they continue through the lessons.  These, too, should be entered in their journal, perhaps starting from the last page in.  Remind students to save the first two pages for a table of contents.

Impress upon students the need to keep an accurate and up-to-date journal.  This will allow them to look back on what they have done before. This is a necessity when constructing crosses since they may not do anything to the flies for several days in a row.  Also, all science experiments need to be documented. STUDENT INPUT ON WHAT A JOURNAL SHOULD LOOK LIKE? MAJOR GRADE?

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