The opsin explorations investigate a number of key ideas. First and foremost, how there can be new discoveries through evolution's tools of mutation and selection. The key events underlying our ability to tell red from green are the duplication of an ancestral red receptor and its 'decay' through mutation... leaving a 'new' opsin tuned more toward green.
Click the icon above to for a directory of worksheets and rubrics (nothing here yet).
This is the key component, where students start with an mRNA, select 'codons' to mutate, and observe outcomes in terms of wavelength. Changes based on published data on mutated opsins (see Resources)