Technology in the Classroom

I. NYS Standards:

Standard 4 – The Living Environment

Students will understand and apply scientific concepts, principles, and theories pertaining to the physical setting and living environment and recognize the historical development of ideas in science.

Key Idea 2: Organisms inherit genetic information in a variety of ways that result in continuity of structure and function between parents and offspring.

Performance Indicators:

2.1 Explain how the structure and replication of genetic material result in offspring that resemble their parents.

2.1a Genes are inherited, but their expression can be modified by interactions with the environment.

2.1b Every organism requires a set of coded instructions for specifying its traits. For offspring to resemble their parents, there must be a reliable way to transfer information from one generation to the next. Heredity is the passage of these instructions from one generation to another.

2.1c Hereditary information is contained in genes, located in the chromosomes of each cell. An inherited trait of an individual can be determined by one or by many genes, and a single gene can influence more than one trait. A human cell contains many thousands of different genes in its nucleus.

2.1e In sexually reproducing organisms, the new individual receives half of the genetic information from its mother (via the egg) and half fromits father (via the sperm). Sexually produced offspring often resemble, but are not identical to, either of their parents.

II. Objectives – The learner will be able to:

read and interpret a karyotype.
Identify genetic traits in themselves by phenotype and genotype.
Demonstrate how different forms of a gene (alleles) are passed down to their offspring
give information regarding seven different genetic diseases.

III. Purpose:

Genetics also plays a very important role in many human diseases. It is very likely that a student will encounter a genetic disease, such as diabetes, heart disease and cancer in their family, friends, or even in themselves. Doctors can use karyotypes to determine if a person has any abnormalities in their chromosomes. Knowledge of genetic diseases can help in prevention and treatment of the disease.,

IV. Materials:

Activity handouts, pencil, scissors, glue sticks, colored pencils

Introduce activity by saying that we will be making babies! Ask students to look at the karyotype picture in their handout and ask if they know what the lines are. Explain what a karyoptype is and what it is used for.

Day One: Demonstrate how to determine the phenotype and genotype (using a coin toss for dominant traits) of each trait in Table 1. Explain that they are all heterozygous carriers of the diseases in Table 2, thus the disease is not expressed in them. However, the disease may be expressed in their child if the child inherits two recessive genes. Demonstrate how to assign genotypes to the appropriate karyotypes

Day Two: Demonstrate how to color the karyotype, cut it out, and paste it onto the baby karyotype using a coin toss.

Provide guidance and further instruction as needed as the students progress through the activity in class.

Day Two: Students are to compile a trait list of the child that they produced. They also will answer 5 questions associated with the activity.

Attainment of the objectives for this activity will be assessed using the components of the completed – the child’s karyotype, the trait list, and the answers to the questions.

Day Two: Review what the purpose of the activity was – to be able to read and interpret a karyotype, to be able to determine the phenotype and genotype of a particular trait, to demonstrate how genes are passed to offspring, and to learn about genetic diseases. Explain that we will be going into more detail about how genes are passed to offspring – in a process calle