Oh my... talk about chaos. File this activity under "activities you definitely need to do at least once before deploying."
This is another activity that is hard to conceptualize on paper.
Tip #1-- buy PLASTIC, not paper cups. Paper cups do not hold up well to aggressive feeders well, and the get soggy.
Tip #2-- run off a packet of at least 3 copies of the Activity Data Sheet #1 back to back. (I'm going to do the same for sheet #2)
Tip #3-- have plenty of paper towels on hand!
In my first class, we only got through the random color matings. We applied selective pressure in my other two classes, but did not get beyond that. I suspected I wouldn't finish everything in 90 minutes...
There is something that still has me scratching my head about in this activity: each student has 4 allele cards. I'm not entirely sure why-- I'm imaging to increase diversity while mating? Or was the designer trying to simulate gametes? But here's my problem with having 4 cards:
Say a pair of heterozygous gold birds mate and produce two blue offspring, thus needing a total of 8 blue cards for the offspring. But the pair only has 4 blue cards and 4 gold cards in their hands. Should they swap out cards so the offspring have all blue cards as the genotype indicates? That's what I was having them do, but I was worried it was possibly creating misconceptions.
I have the exact same question as I am exploring this. If the colors are alleles why not 2 alleles, why 4?
ReplyDeleteI have the exact same question as I am exploring this. If the colors are alleles why not 2 alleles, why 4?
ReplyDeleteHi Beth! For some reason I didn't see your comment until now. I have NO idea why they have 4 alleles. My guess is that they're trying to simulate the 4 gametes formed by meiosis. But at the time I did this simulation, my students had not yet learned about meiosis... so it was extraordinarily confusing for them! I think if I do it again, I may just use 2 cards for each allele to be consistent with genes/chromosomes from the parent.
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