The Tuesday lab section shows off their skillz in the Dance of the Mitotic Division

So, now that I’m at University of Hawaii at West O’ahu, I’m teaching the introductory biology course, Biology and Society. For this week’s lab, my two sections got outside and did one of my favorite scientific dance moves – the dance of mitotic division!

The Tuesday lab is much larger and so had more players. Wednesday’s lab section, being much smaller, had to proceed in the absence of a plasma membrane. Needless to say, however, the pool noodles (ahem, the sister chromatids) still metaphased and anaphased and telophased quite nicely. Cytokinesis got a little problematic in Tuesday’s lab, when the plasma membrane cleaved in a few more spots than was strictly necessary, but everyone ended up with happy little identical daughter cells in the end.

You can view the full mitotic dance here.