A kid doodles on the side of his notebook while a figure paces in front of a classroom. Thoughts swirl around about knights, and dragons, and combinations of strange creatures. What would happen if those creatures were real? How would they pass down their traits from one generation to the next?
I believe that when students play a part in the creation of an idea, the idea remains more firmly than one simply handed to them. That’s why I work hard to develop methods that allow students to contribute to their own understanding. The trick is to give them a task that requires them to contribute with what they already know, and teach them what they need to accomplish the task. That might sound intimidating, but really it is easy to do. Give them a question you know they can answer, a question they can answer any way they want. Like, what is your favorite animal? Or which do you like better, Batman or Superman? All you need is to have them engage the topic.
Once they pick an answer you can use their answer to guide them to an understanding of the topic you want them to know. Just a little bit of engagement can go a long way. I will often use this strategy with a student I find is checking out. You know the look, the one where their eyes gase off behind you… when you are right in front of them. Just ask them a question and make them answer. Get excited about whatever they say (unless it warrants a visit to the councilor), praise them for their answer, and use their answer to teach them. It is the engagement that makes it stick. No engagement, no connection; No connection, no meeting of student and idea; No meeting, no meaning.
Creature Genetics is designed to give students a choice. Their answers can be anything they want, but their answers will lead them to a solid understanding of the principles of non-Mendelian genetics. When I have implemented this project, students have always been excited to draw their creations, or to copy their favorite cartoon character with slight modifications. That engagement is your best friend when teaching. It becomes the carrot by which you can lead students to discuss standard aligned content. Which ultimately is what we are paid to do. It is true that we could just talk at them for the class period, but I would rather listen to the cool ideas that students have than to rehash my own.
Here are some of the things students have submitted to me for this project:
Jackalope
Pizza
Pencil
Cell Phone
Unipig
Unicorn/Alicorn
Christmas Tree
Christmas Cookie
And countless cartoon characters. Here, I want to take a moment to pause for those worried about copyright issues. As long as students are not selling their project (which none of them should be) they are perfectly within copyright fair use to use any character with attribution. It falls under commentary and education, two things both listed under copyright laws as acceptable use. (this is not legal advice, I am not a lawyer, but seriously don’t shoot a student’s idea down because you are worried you might be sued. The creators will probably never even hear of your student’s project and if they do, they should be flattered at the fan art! And also, THIS IS NOT LEGAL ADVICE!)
So now you’ve got them to pick a snazzy character/creature/swamp beast/whatever, what do you do next? Get them to pick out five different characteristics the creature has. Characteristics are things that organisms pass down. Things like hair color, height, weight, presence/absence of horns/wings/other appendage, number of legs, etc. The point is it must be able to be passed down, and since students are making this up, that means pretty much anything goes (as long as it’s school appropriate… I’m looking at you other appendage).
Once they have the traits you can start talking about codominance and incomplete dominance. They should be given a few examples. Everyone benefits from concrete examples (especially construction companies). I typically use color to contrast the two ideas. For codominance I pick two colors and talk about how both are shown within the heterozygous individual. If dad is blue and mom is red, the baby will be red and blue. That’s for co-dominant, but for incomplete dominant, if dad is blue and mom is red, the baby will be purple.
When a trait is codominant they are both shown but distinct and separate. While incomplete dominant they are a mix or blend of the two alleles. Then I ask them, if dad has short legs and mom has long legs, what length legs will baby have if the trait is codominant? (hopefully they say some long and some short) what about for incomplete dominant? ( and hopefully they say medium length). Now they can pick any two colors and show their understanding of codominance and incomplete dominance. They can pick any non-phallic-or-possibly-phallic-appendage and demonstrate their understanding as well. This can easily be done in one class period.
Speaking of, this project is best done over a series of class days. Students need time to formulate ideas and change what they want their creature to be. Even if you only have students work on the project for 10 minutes each day and then switch to something else, even a totally different topic, I believe that will be more valuable than dumping the whole project on them to complete in one class period. Just keep that in mind when lesson planning.
I break up the project into five different days
Introduction and creature selection
co-dominant and incomplete dominant
Multiple allele
Dihybrid cross
Practice problems/ peer review
Once the project has been peer reviewed, I have students submit their project. I allow class time to work on each section (no more than 20 minutes at a time, because attention s- squirrel! What if a student did squirrels for their creature genetic project…). While students are working, I circle the room. I give feedback to those who ask, discuss ideas with students who haven’t started, and for lack of a better term socialize. This work time is a great, low-stakes time to get to know your students and to talk to them about something they are interested in while connecting it with the subject matter you are paid to teach. It is a win-win all around.
Getting students excited and contributing to the discussion helps them learn. Anytime a student can contribute we should praise their efforts. The creature genetics project helps students make meaningful contributions and gets them excited about learning. If you liked this idea and want to try it out head on over to my store. You can find other products that allow students to bring in their own ideas to learn biology. Click the link below to find more resources.