THE FARM REVEALED
PROGRAMME 3: CLONING
ACTIVITIES
Guidance
These clips and discussion points are aimed at understanding the limits of cloning as a method of species conservation. Concepts to address are the combined roles of inbreeding, habitat loss, hunting, alien competition and climate change in species decline.
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Clip-related activities
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The video clips may contain a few seconds of extra material at the beginning and end. We have therefore included opening and closing dialogues to help identify the intended scene.
Genetics and conservation
Activity 1
Clip 1: 05:51 – 07:31
- Opens with the narrator saying, 'Our reporter, Olivia Judson…'
- Closes with Olivia Judson saying, '…Oh boy, that's blue whale…'
Olivia Judson visits Dr Oliver Ryder at the research centre of San Diego Zoo. He has frozen tissue samples of 600 endangered animal species to aid in conservation efforts.
Visit the World Conservation Union website:
www.iucnredlist.org
Find out how it assesses endangered plants and animals. What is the Red List? Why do we need a Red List?
Now go to the search facility and search for one of the following animals: orangutan (Pongo pygmaeus), tiger (Panthera tigris) or polar bear (Ursus maritimus).
Is it endangered? How does the Red List categorise it? Why is it endangered?
List all the things that you could do to stop these species becoming extinct.
How do you think cloning could help these animal species survive? Will it help them survive in the wild, or just in captivity? If you wanted to save them from extinction in the wild, what else would you need to do apart from maintaining genetic diversity?
Activity 2
Clip 2: 09:04 – 10:48
- Opens with Dr Oliver Ryder saying, 'The banteng population…'
- Closes with Olivia Judson saying, 'I was glad to find out I was wrong.'
Olivia Judson meets a banteng clone. The clone was made from tissue taken from an animal that died 25 years previously.
Visit the World Conservation Union website:
www.iucnredlist.org
Go to the search facility and search for banteng or Bos javanicus. What can you find out on the red list? How do you think the clones will save this species from extinction? What other protection does this species need apart from genetic diversity? Do you think that it is important to save this species, or do you think that it should be left to die out?
Activity 3
Go to London Zoo's gallery of extinct species:
www.zsl.org/info/library/
gallery-of-extinct-species,13,PS.html
If you had some tissue from one of these species, would you bring one back? Do you think that it would ethical to do so? If you wanted to reintroduce the species to the wild, would you be able to do that from a single clone?
Further activities
DNA profiling
Go to the Royal Institution website:
http://insideout.rigb.org/ri/dna/
dna/index.html
Choose The DNA Detectives game. You should be well able to complete the forensic experiments having watched Chris Smith extracting DNA in the studio.
Uses of cloning
Make a list of all the potential ways in which cloning could be used. (For example, you could resurrect a dead relative, treat life-threatening diseases, or terrorise the world with a cloned bacterium.)
Make lists individually and then pool them. Discuss each of these uses and rate it on a scale of 1-10 for ethics, usefulness and likelihood.
Does this exercise reveal any dangers inherent in the technology? Should cloning be controlled? If so, how?
