Recently my science classes have began discussions about genetics. In our discussions we have gone into great detail about heredity…..which is the passing on of characteristics from parents to offspring. We have used the work of Gregor Mendel to view how the passing of traits exactly works. Mendel used pea plants to explain how traits are passed on from parents to their offspring. Above is a picture of Mendel’s famous punnet that explains how characteristics are passed on from generation to generation.
In today’s class, we took some time to observe the physical characteristics that are visual-able in ourselves. Above is a picture of one of my students ‘colorfully’ displaying the fact that he has one attached earlobe and one free earlobe. This is one characteristic that my students were asked to look for today.
The Assignment
Students were given a set list of characteristics to look for with a partner. The characteristics represented dominant and recessive characteristics….these ranged from earlobes, cliff chin, hair color, and even rolling your tongue. This information was collected on checklist given to the students. After students collected their information about their own characteristics, they were then asked to share this information with other students in the classroom.
Below is a short reflection from one of my students about the activity that we did today in science class.
Mr. McClung
Hello, my name is Nicky Jittan and I attend the University of South Alabama in the United States. Viewing this blog is a requirement for my EDM310 class. You can view my blog at jittannedm310fall2009.blogspot.com. I really enjoyed searching through your class blog. I see that you guys are learning while incorporating fun into the equation. Learning is all about having fun in the process and you guys are accomplishing that very well. Great job on the blog and keep up the good work all of you! I will continue to check the updates on you class blog from time to time.