Mud Daubers & Proteins

Overview

Students begin with an anticipation guide, slides, and videos about mud daubers and their role in the environment. They read about amino acids, proteins, and paper chromatography, then run chromatograms of known amino acids to identify an unknown mixture, calculating Rf values and connecting R groups to chemical properties. Students next interpret data on nest soil and surrounding soil and write a CER answering what they notice. In the laboratory phase, they extract protein from both soils, run chromatography, and compare which proteins appear in each. Each student then creates a research poster summarizing the work.

Lesson Objectives

• Explain the role of mud daubers in an ecosystem.
• Identify the soil composition of a mud dauber nest as well as its origin.
• Identify proteins.
• Calculate r values.
• Justify the identification of unknown proteins in a mixture.
• Extract protein from soil samples and then identify the amino acids using chromatography.
• Communicate their results.