This is a guest post, taken from Terry’s homework book, with input from Sheila and Vishesh, from Dread Spring
A short history of armageddon
Nuclear armageddon: everything got contaminated and lots of people got killed, but that was on other continents
Kids sent away: Kids got elevated to other countries to keep them safe [Note from Sheila: The word is evacuated.]
Nuclear winter: BRRRRR!!! The sun was hot, but it was cold outside and stuff didn’t grow right
Resources were scarce: People fought over all the stuff they needed to live
Towns came to the rescue! The cities and towns came to all the farms and cleaned everything up and made it all safe and clean
Everyone was saved: Now we can live on our own without the towns [Note from Sheila: That’s an over-simplification; the towns are still required to periodically decontaminate our fields. Don’t exaggerate!]
Governance structure of the City and towns
The City is the boss of all the towns. The farms call the towns with receivers and then they come when the City tells them to. The City can ask the towns what they think. The towns never ask the farms what they think. A town came to our farm when I was five and it was loud and scary. It’s not scary now. It would be cool for a town to come now.
[Note from Sheila: Please expand on the internal governance structure of the towns.]
The townrunner runs the towns and they have a deputy also. They tell everyone what to do and then they do it. Sometimes the town people tell the townrunner what they want, but the townrunner doesn’t have to listen to them. Being a townrunner would be awesome. I would tell everyone what to do.
What is DNA?
DNA is too tiny to see. It tells living things what to be. I have DNA in my body, and so does a tree. DNA is shaped like a twisty staircase and sometimes unzips. Some animals have DNA from both their parents and some only from one. You can also clone things with DNA and make a copy that’s exactly the same person. I wish I had a clone of me. They would be the funnest and best at soccer, just like me. Then we could play whenever we wanted, even if Connor was busy.
[Note from Vishesh: What happens when DNA goes wrong, as in radiation exposure?]
With radiation exposure, it breaks the DNA and makes it wrong so it makes the wrong stuff in your cells. Then your cells all die and then you die, too.
[Note from Vishesh: Do you remember how DNA is copied, beyond the unzipping?]
DNA is copied by unzipping and then a little guy goes up and down and builds the other half of it with little building blocks and then you have two.
[Note form Vishesh: And why else might DNA unzip?]
DNA unzips to make the parts that your body needs, like instructions to tell your body what to make.
[Note from Vishesh: How does your body choose which parts to make?]
There’s little bumps on the outside of the DNA that tell your body what to build or not. The bumps get added when things happen to the person, like if they get sick or eat something.
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