Middle School Inquiry Lab on Heredity
In this lab students will study their personal traits then chart the traits of the entire group.
Each inquiry lab will contain an essential question that will drive the lesson and make students think. For this lesson, the essential question is:
- How does heredity influence traits?
BACKGROUND INFORMATION AND MATERIALS LIST:
Students will begin the lab by reading the essential question and background information. This can be done individually, as lab groups, or as a whole class. If you consider lab groups, you also might include some type of whole class formative checks before digging into the lab.
.svg)
Materials List:
- paper
- pencil
- mirror
PROCEDURE:
For this lab, students will work in groups to come up with a list of traits to survey. Groups will have to determine if they would like to list traits that are only inherited, acquired, or have a mixture of both.
Once the list is complete, about eight to nine traits, students will use a mirror to see if they have those traits listed. Next, students will then venture to other groups to see if any other students in their class have the listed traits as well.
Finally, when all data has been collected, students will create a chart showing the results of the trait survey.
CHECK FOR UNDERSTANDING:
At this point in the lab, students will be checked for understanding by answering questions about their findings. Here is one that that comes with the lab:
- How are inherited traits handed down from one generation to the next?
CONCLUSION
Students will go back to the essential question and write a CER (Claim, Evidence, Reasoning) to conclude the lab. Once completed, students will reflect back on their learning by answering the following questions:
- What is the difference between inherited and acquired traits?
- How does each generation pass traits to offspring?
- What is the difference between the genotype and phenotype of an organism?
MODIFIED AND INDEPENDENT INQUIRY VERSIONS
All of the Kesler Science inquiry labs come with three different modification levels. Each lab is differentiated using the icons below.
STANDARDS ALIGNMENT
TEKS: ## – (standard definition).
