Time
Students may spend anywhere between 1-8 hours playing with dragon genetics. There are 12 activities total. Each activity takes students between 20-50 minutes to complete depending on how quickly the child works. The full sequence is as follows:
- Introduction – What do dragons look like and why?
- Rules – What’s the relationship between genotype and phenotype?
- Meiosis – Why don’t family members look the same?
- Horns Dilemma – Can 2 horned parents have a hornless baby?
- Monohybrid – What can you learn from pedigrees?
- X Linkage – What happens if a gene is part of the X chromosome?
- Mutations – A unicorn dragon! What happened?
- Mutations 2 – What happens if you change the DNA?
- Dihybrid cross – How likely is it for 2 traits to be inherited together?
- Scales – How do you study the inheritance of a new mutation?
- Invisible dragons – Dan you determine the genotype of parent dragons just by looking at the phenotypes of the offspring?
- Plates – How are plates inherited?
It is not necessary or even recommended to complete every activity. My middle school students completed the abbreviated sequence below in 4 class periods. Students who finished early could continue on to the other activities.
- Introduction – What do dragons look like and why?
- Rules – What’s the relationship between genotype and phenotype?
- Meiosis – Why don’t family members look the same?
- Monohybrid – What can you learn from pedigrees?
- Mutations – A unicorn dragon! What happened?
Grouping
Individual although students working in pairs on the same computer is also fine.
Materials
Computer lab with at least one computer for every 2 students
Optional: For later modules, you may want to provide or have students create a paper “Dragon Genetics Rules” handout listing each of the traits and a phenotype to genotype translation (HH = horns, Hh = horns, hh = no horns).
Setting
Computer lab.
