Plastic pony beads work best for this project, although you can use any kind of beads that have a hole wide enough to fit over the pipe cleaners. Each of the 2 pairs of pipe cleaners should be a different color, giving you 4 total pipe cleaners preferably black and orange. One pair will be the phosphate and the other pair will be the deoxyribose.
Be sure that the 2 long strands that form the double helix match up, so that the beads are in the same order. Leave about 1⁄2 inch (1. 3 cm) of space between each bead to allow room to attach the other pieces of pipe cleaner.
Place 1 bead from each pair at the ends of the 2 in (5. 1 cm) sections of pipe cleaners. Leave a little room at the ends to wrap around the double helix strands. It doesn’t matter what order the beads are placed on the pipe cleaners, as long as they are in the correct pairs.
Space each small piece so they are always attached above a bead of the same color on the side. You should be skipping every-other bead on the double helix strands. The order of small pieces does not matter, it is up to you what way you would like to organize them on the double helix strands.
You will need to paint 16 sugar balls, 14 phosphate balls, and 4 different colors for each of the nitrogenous bases (cytosine, guanine, thymine, and adenine). You could choose to have one of the colors be white, so that you don’t have to paint some of the styrofoam. This might be easiest for the sugar balls, as it will greatly reduce your total amount of work.
The order of the colors does not matter, as long as they are in the correct pairs. Stick a toothpick between each of the pairs, leaving a little extra space at the sharp ends of the toothpicks.
Line up the styrofoam sugar and phosphate balls, so that they alternate in sets of 15. There should be more sugar balls than phosphate balls. Make sure that the 2 strands of sugar and phosphate are in the same order, so that they line up when placed next to each other. Thread through the centers of each alternating string of styrofoam sugar and phosphate balls. Tie the string off at the end of each strand, to prevent the balls from sliding off.
Only attach the pairs to the styrofoam balls representing sugar, as this is how DNA is attached in real life. Make sure that enough of the toothpick is attached to the strands that the pairs of bases will not fall off easily.
Whatever candy you use, make sure that it is soft enough to allow a toothpick to puncture it. [10] X Research source If you have them on hand, colored marshmallows are a great substitute for gummy bears.
Use 2 pieces of string that are the same length to make the double helix. Make sure you have at least a dozen toothpicks, although you may need a few more or less depending on how large you make your model
It doesn’t matter if a pair goes C–G or G–C, as long as those are always the two in a pair. You cannot mix colors between pairs. For example, you cannot combine T–G or A–C. The colors you choose are completely arbitrary and are entirely based on personal preference.
The 2 colors of licorice symbolize the sugar and phosphate that make up the double helix strands. Choose one color to be the sugar group; your gummy bear nitrogenous bases will be attaching to this color of licorice. Make sure that your 2 strands have licorice in the same order so that they line up when placed next to each other. Tie another knot to the other end of the string once you have finished adding all your licorice pieces.
Push the gummy bears far enough on each toothpick that at least 1⁄4 inch (0. 64 cm) of the sharp end is still sticking out. You can have more of some pairs than others; the number of pairs in real life DNA determines differences and changes in the genes they form.
You should be attaching the toothpicks only to the “sugar” molecules that you decided on. These are all the pieces of licorice in the same color (for example, all the red pieces). Use all your gummy bear toothpicks, don’t worry about saving any.
