How I teach the lac operon (without PowerPoint)

The lac operon is a classic of genetics and is common in biology curricula. Yet, students can sometimes find it difficult. I want to show you how I've taught it using diagrams and dialogue. You can read about the benefits of teaching without PowerPoint here.

I began by discussing the structure of the lac operon. This lesson came after several in which we'd considered the complexity of eukaryotic genomes. This included introns and vast regions of "non-coding" DNA. Yet bacteria have evolved to be streamlined. I drew the diagram below to show how the genes are positioned.

🚨 Update: I've moved to a new home! You can read the newest, updated version of this article on my new website here: https://christianmooreanderson.com/how-i-teach-the-lac-operon/