DNA is inside everyone. It is the instruction book that makes sure we get put together correctly. Every person, animal and plant comes with their own instruction book hidden inside of them and that is their DNA. Where as the normal English alphabet has 26 letters, DNA is made up of only 4 letters and these are A, T, C and G. These DNA letters are also paired together so that A is paired with T and C is paired with G.
To make your DNA models you may need help from an adult as we will be using cocktail sticks which are sharp.
The first thing you will want to do is get your fruit pastels, midget gems, coloured sweets etc. You need to divide them into four different colours so that one colour will be used for each letter, one for A, T, C and G. You may like to label each of the sweet colours so that you don't forget. You then need to get a cocktail stick and on one side put your A and the other side your T. On another cocktail stick put a C on one side and a G on the other. Repeat this on a few cocktail sticks.
You then want to get two of your strawberry shoelaces or similar sweets. You need to push one end of the cocktail stick into one of the shoelaces and the other end of the cocktail stick into the second shoelace. Repeat this down the length of the shoelaces.
When you have finished adding you DNA pairs down the length of the shoelaces you should then be able to twirl the DNA to show the double helix structure.
To see the video tutorial for this activity, visit the Surrey Libraries Facebook Page or the Surrey Libraries YouTube Channel. I hope you have fun making (and eating) your DNA models!
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