Life Science: Genetics

Sample Material

» Table of Contents (PDF)
» What's the Big Question (PDF)
» Learning Set 1 (PDF)

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The Big Question: How can knowledge of genetics help feed the world?

To answer the Big Question, students respond to a Big Challenge: Provide advice about developing a rice plant that is nutritious and can be grown in places that do not get a lot of rain. After being introduced to the worldwide problem of food shortage, students investigate how to develop varieties of rice that could help to alleviate the shortage. Within this context, students learn about sexual and asexual reproduction, Mendelian inheritance, Punnett squares, meiosis and mitosis, chromosomes and DNA, how traits and the environment interact, evolution and natural selection, variation, natural and artificial selection, and the promises and potential threats of genetic engineering.

Implements STEM initiative
Uses the Engineering Design Cycle

• Charles Darwin
• disorders
• DNA
• dominant and recessive alleles
• evolution
• extinction
• F1 and F2 generations
• fertilization
• flowering plants
• fossil evidence for evolution
• fossil record
• frequencies
• gene expression and the environment

• genes
• genetic diseases
• genetic engineering
• genotype
• Gregor Mendel
• heredity
• history and structure of rice and rice plants
• Human Genome Project
• incomplete dominance
• inheritance
• meiosis
• mitosis
• monocultures
• natural selection
• P generation

• phenotype
• photosynthesis
• pollination
• predators
• prey
• probability
• radioactive dating
• relative dating
• selection
• selection pressure
• sex cells
• sex chromosomes
• sexual reproduction
• species
• traits

• asking questions
• careful observation
• comparing through observation
• criteria and constraints
• interpretation
• interpreting data
• keeping good records
• making measurements
• making recommendations
• modeling and simulations

• observational data
• planning a procedure
• planning an experiment
• reliable data
• sampling
• using a microscope
• using data to predict outcomes
• using evidence
• using evidence to make recommendations
• using scientific tools

21ST CENTURY SKILLS
Collaboration
Communicating plans and ideas Developing explanations
Finding trends in data
Critical thinking including:

• building on the work of others
• collecting, organizing, and analyzing data
• observations and interpretation using science knowledge
• using evidence to support claims