What do you do in your pedigree chart lesson? For middle school students, this is usually the first time that they hear what a pedigree chart is, and they will either love it or push it to the side.
I personally love to teach about pedigree charts because I absolutely love genetics. It’s an amazing and growing field. There’s a lot more to it than just memorizing symbols, and it can be so much more!
In this post, I want to share with you how to bring the WOW factor to your science classroom and teach your students about pedigree charts in a fun and engaging way that they will love.
First, I will share with you some ideas on how to get your students engaged before you dive into the content, then I will share with you a lesson that can be an engaging way to teach the material, and finally I will share some ideas on how you can widen their knowledge on the topic.
Engaging WONDER Strategies for your Pedigree Chart Lesson Plan
To bring that WOW factor to your science classroom, one of the first things that you have to do is engage your students in the topic and get them intrinsically motivated to learn what you are teaching. You have to help them to wonder. Pedigree charts are a very interesting topic, and can be dry if you let it, but it doesn’t have to be!
I have 3 ideas to engage your students in this awesome genetics topic. You can choose which fits best for your classroom.
Pedigree Chart Symbol Discovery
This is an inquiry-based activity where your students have the opportunity to “guess” what all of these symbols even mean!
Don’t give too much away in the “wonder” stage of the lesson, but in this case, you can tell them that a pedigree chart uses symbols to represent people to show the inheritance of a single trait over generations.
That’s all that you have to let them know! It’s like a family tree that traces a genetic trait.
Then, you can put them in groups with cards such as circles, squares, vertical lines, horizontal lines, shaded shapes, shapes that are not shaded, and so on. It’s up to you how far into it you’d like to get.
You can either have them to just guess what those symbols could be, or you can have some cards that they could match it with.
Don’t tell them if they are right or not. They are WONDERING. Time to move on to the lesson!
Post-It Notes Genetics Discussions
Post-It notes are a great way to get each and every one of your students engaged in the topic. It’s also a great way to view the prior knowledge, start good conversations, and address misconceptions.
So, what you do is give each of your students a post-it note and ask a question. They will write the answer down and then carry it to wherever you wish.
You can then call out some of the answers, see if there are any patterns, and have some good conversations.
So, what are some good questions to ask your students before teaching about pedigree charts?
- What does inheritance mean?
- Do you know of any genetic disorders? What is it? Explain.
- What are traits?
- What is the difference between an inherited trait and an acquired trait?
- Do you know what a pedigree chart is? What are pedigree charts used for?
Your question can be anything that ties to the lesson. What would your students be most interested in answering?
Geneticist Guest Speaker
Guest speakers are wonderful. I repeat, guest speakers are wonderful!
I will say that there have been times where the speakers were not used to speaking to a middle school audience; however, I’ve had some great ones as well.
Before learning about pedigree charts, it would be so good to get a local geneticist or even someone who is willing to come over the webcam.
They can share all of their knowledge about inherited traits, pedigree charts, and much more! You can have your students write down questions beforehand that they may have.
I will give one piece of advice to you if you’ve never had a guest speaker. Give your students something to do. One example that you can use is while the speaker is speaking, have your students write down 3 interesting things, 2 new things that they learned, and 1 question that they may have.
Pedigree Charts Explained – Overcome the Overwhelm with this Lesson
Hopefully you can prevent some overwhelm of information before you even share the content with your students. Their brains should be ready, and interactive lessons are the perfect way to continue this pattern.
Interactive lessons are created for the purpose of reducing student cognitive load by breaking information down into chunks with embedded interactive activities that help students process the information. There are also other research-based strategies included such as sorting, highlighting important information, and keeping relative pictures and text together.
How do pedigree charts work? This pedigree charts interactive lesson is a perfect addition to help your students with understanding pedigree charts. It is a great pedigree chart tutorial.
This lesson answers the question, “What is the purpose of a pedigree chart?”. In addition, it covers symbols in pedigree charts, individuals, determining genotypes, autosomal and sex-linked traits, homozygous and heterozygous, and more!
Students can participate in answer in the text box activities, drag-and drop genotypes, and more! This is a great way for students to get their pedigree chart notes.
You can also find this on TPT.
Should You Use Pedigree Charts Worksheets?
So, I’m not a huge fan of worksheets all of the time, but they have their place. I think that this topic is one of those where practicing on a worksheet is useful, but guess what? I think that there are also other ways to widen student knowledge so they can broaden what they have learned already about this fun topic.
Here are 3 ideas that you can take with you that give you an alternate assignment besides using a worksheet.
Tell a Story
This was one of my favorite things to do with my students right after my pedigree lesson. I would pull up a random pedigree chart, and I’d pick a student from the class to tell me a story about that pedigree chart. It was SO much fun.
They would start off something like this. Bob and Sally got married and had 2 sons and 1 daughter named Bobby, Joe, and Anna Lee…. Then they would carry on through generations and also speak about the trait that is being traced through the chart.
I would allow as many students to do this that wanted to as time allowed. They have a ball using their creativity to do this, and they also love to hear stories that their classmates share.
Pedigree Charts Task Cards
Want something like a worksheet, but just need something different? I love task cards. There are so many ways to use them in your classroom.
These pedigree charts task cards have so many pedigree charts examples and questions about them. They cover the definition, why are pedigrees useful, homozygous and heterozygous, phenotypes, and genotypes, and more!
They help students answer question such as:
- Which pedigree symbol is used to represent a person that has the trait?
- In a pedigree a ___________________ line represents a cross/marriage.
- How many boys are in the pedigree?
There are 24 task cards in this set and an answer sheet, along with an answer key, are included.
Task cards are great for early finishers, review, RTI, science centers, and more. I love that it allows my students to get out of their seat and get some of those middle school wiggle out.
They can also be found on TPT.
Have Students Create Their Own Chart
Option #1:
Usually, after I teach about pedigree charts, I go right into genetic variations and genetic disorders. It helps to tie in what they learned about traits. Once they have a good understanding of these topics, they can create their own pedigree chart to show off.
Have your students either work individually, in partners, or in groups to research a genetic disorder and create a pedigree chart to represent a family with that disorder. This will really take some research and understanding of dominant and recessive traits. They can really learn a lot with this!
Option #2:
Students can look up a famous family, whether real or fictional such as the royal family, Harry Potter’s family, superheroes, or they can just make one up!
They can choose a trait of their choice and make a pedigree.
This can be challenging for some, but lot of fun, and students are given choice.
You can make it a big deal! Give prizes for those they have the most creative pedigree chart and for the one with the most accurate. You can also tell your students that these will be displayed in the hallway, so they should really do their best!
Help your students master science content!
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