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BLAST is the most commonly used bioinformatics program. I created this bioinformatics activity with funding from the National Science Foundation a few years ago. Since then, I've updated the instructions and added more questions and example answers. This activity has been quite popular and is used by community college, University, and high school teachers throughout the world.
In this activity, students use "unknown" sequences to search GenBank with a search tool called "blastn." The BLAST family of programs are very common tools in biological research and biotechnology. After doing the search, students answer questions about their results.
Links to the data set and an on-line tutorial can be found here at BLAST for beginners.
I recently updated the answer key and you can get it here.
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My teaching experience began when I found myself director of a biotechnology training program at Seattle Central Community College in the early 90's. Since there wasn't any curriculum available, I wrote all the biotechnology lab manuals and taught courses in genetics, immunology, media and solution preparation, biotech lab courses, and microbiology. Today, I have my own company, Digital World Biology. We produce free tutorials on using bioinformatics, offer professional development for teachers in bioinformatics, and develop instructional materials. I also teach an on-line course in bioinformatics for Austen Community College in Texas and another bioinformatics course at Shoreline Community College in Washington State. I write about science and teaching at ScienceBlogs. My blog is Discovering Biology in a Digital World.
