Hi,
The goal of the Tree of Life project (
https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... p001.shtml) as stated in the summary is:
"The goal of this science project is to compare a protein's amino acid sequence in a couple of animals to infer how closely related they are to one another. You have access to the same online genomics databases and software that scientists use every day. You can select a few animals you are interested in and find a protein common to all of them using information you can find online. Then you can use an online software tool to line those proteins up and compare the sequences. The more similar the amino acid sequence of the protein, the more closely related the two species are!"
The animals you choose should span a range of types from simple--worms and insects--to complex--mammals, including humans.
The harder part is choosing what protein to compare. For example, if you picked hemoglobin, you would be able to compare the forms of the protein in fish, frogs, birds, and mammals but I don't think insects or worms have hemoglobin. They might have some protein that is related to hemoglobin, however, and it could be interesting to look for that.
Proteins have what are called domains. These are 'parts' of the protein that do specific things like catalyze a reaction, bind a substrate or dimerize with another protein or vitamin. By assembling these parts in different ways, proteins can be made that have different properties although they may share some of the same parts. When you do the comparison, you can use different parts of the protein's amino acid sequence rather than the whole sequence.
I hope this helps you get started. Let us know when you have more questions.
Sybee