Inheritance

“Is Your Chicken Yellow?”

Date of Lesson

{ This lesson will be taught on Friday of the first week of the unit plan.

SOL

{ BIO.6 – Prediction of inheritance of traits based on the laws of heredity.

Objective

{ Given an explanation and an activity dealing with inheritance, students will be able to correctly determine a recessive and dominant outcome of an offspring using the Punnett Square with 75% accuracy.

{ Given explanations of terms and theories dealing with inheritance, students will be able to describe the terms related to inheritance with 75% accuracy.

Materials

{ 2 coins for each group of students

Handouts and Teaching Materials

{ List of dominant and recessive traits for the sperm/egg to carry

{ Punnett Square handouts

Prerequisite Skills

{ Declarative Knowledge – Basic understanding of meiosis as well as terms

such as phenotype, genotype, dominant, recessive heterozygous and homozygous.

Lesson Introduction

{ Class will begin by taking attendance;

{ As each name is being called have the child try to roll their tongue, so that the two outer edges of their tongues almost meet. Have the children maintain that position. While the children are in this position, and roll call is finished, with their tongues sticking out have the children clasp their hands together, so that their fingers interlock.

{ The students will note whether or not they were able to roll their tongues and will also note which thumb is on top when their hands were clasps together.

{ This activity will then be followed up with an explanation that their ability to roll their tongue is a dominant trait that is inherited. Also inherited is which thumb is on top when their hands are clasped together, if the left thumb is on top they have inherited a dominant trait, while if the right thumb is on top, they have inherited a recessive trait.

{ Allot 5-10 minutes to get the class settled and this activity started and completed.

Lesson Activities

{ Explain to the children that when an egg is fertilized by a sperm genetic traits are then inherited by the resulting offspring. The egg and sperm both contribute to the genetic makeup of the offspring, and in this activity they will determine the genetic makeup of their baby chick.

{ Explain the Punnett Square, using the whiteboard/blackboard/overhead projector, using the attached prototype. Explain that the top row is the male, while the column is the female. Clarify that capital letters are dominant traits, while lower case letters are recessive. Finally, demonstrate how when two traits are combined the resulting phenotype will be dominant or recessive.

{ Allot for 20 minutes for the explanation.

{ Ask for questions. If there are no questions, ask for a volunteer to demonstrate a simple example on the board. using the attached prototype

{ Allot for 10 minutes for questions and demonstration.

{ Have the students pair up, or divide the class into groups of two. Each group will be given two coins; one coin represents the egg while the other represents the sperm. The child will then flip the coin for the respective sperm or egg and if lands on heads the sperm/egg carries the dominant trait, if it lands on tails the sperm/egg carries the recessive trait for that phenotype.

{ The children will try to find if the egg/sperm carries the dominant or recessive traits for feather color (assuming: yellow dominant, red recessive), leg color (assuming: yellow dominant and green recessive) and the color of the egg the chick will eventually lay (assuming: white dominant, brown recessive).

{ The students will note which traits the sperm/egg is dominant or recessive.

{ Using a different Punnett Square for each trait, the children will determine the genetic makeup of their baby chick.

{ The teacher will circulate through the classroom to ask and answer questions.

{ Allot 45-50 minutes for the activity.

Lesson Closure

{ Students will then explain to the rest of the class the genetic makeup of their baby chick.

{ Students will explain which traits were dominant and recessive in the parents and the resulting phenotype of the baby chick.

{ Having the students explain their chick and the reasoning behind it will serve as an formative assessment, to see if the children understood the lesson and the assignment.

{ Allow 10-12 minutes for the students to describe the makeup of their chick.

Lesson Assessment

{ Formative assessment will be given throughout the class, like questions or demonstration after the explanation of the Punnett Square. As well as having the students themselves explain their reasoning behind the genetic makeup of their baby chick will serve as a formative assessment.

{ Also the teacher should collect the handouts that contain the student’s results.

{ A summative assessment will be given at the end of the lecture series in the form of a quiz about the material covered.

Special students needs/abilities

{ Jabir, Abebech, Huan Yue, Eli, Rene and Gerald will be given a written/printed copy of the class notes.

{ Also the students with special needs/abilities will be paired with students that do not share the same affliction to incorporate them into the class discussion and participation.