Difficult topic made easy

This way of teaching will engage differentiate group of learners.

Understanding Your Pet

Students learn genetics by creating paper pets. With this activity students are introduced to inheritance of traits, probability, mutations, and natural selections. Everything is provided ... See More

Students learn genetics by creating paper pets. With this activity students are introduced to inheritance of traits, probability, mutations, and natural selections. Everything is provided in this article starting with creating these pets, crossing these pets to determine offspring characteristics both phenotype and genotype. The extension of natural selection of these pets in a jungle makes this activity even better. This activity would be a fun and engaging way to have students learn about basic genetics.

Fun Way to Teach and Learn Genetics

Valerie Raunig Finnerty elegantly explains how to use paper pets to describe and teach genetics to her eighth grade students. In the article, she not only explains the process, but she also ... See More

Valerie Raunig Finnerty elegantly explains how to use paper pets to describe and teach genetics to her eighth grade students. In the article, she not only explains the process, but she also provides one with the directions she used including valuable charts the students created and filled out while doing this great hands-on activity. The students first created their paper pets by starting with their homozygous parent generation. The students then had to breed their pets with another pet dissimilar to their own to create a heterozygous F1 generation. The students used a coin and flipped it to determine the chance of a parent having recessive or dominant traits to explain the probability concept of genes. Ms. Finnerty also had the students mimic mutations and adaptions through various generations that ranged from the F2 to F8 generations. Each step builds upon itself, which helps the students to understand the complexity of how genetics works. This activity was very easy to follow and is an excellent way to catch and keep one’s students intrigued.

Pets, Pets, and More Pets

In this article, "Learning Genetics with Paper Pets", author Valery Raunig Finnerty gives an example of a classroom activity that will work alongside a unit about genetics for middle school ... See More

In this article, "Learning Genetics with Paper Pets", author Valery Raunig Finnerty gives an example of a classroom activity that will work alongside a unit about genetics for middle school students. It involves the use of paper pets that start out with five homozygous traits. Students then use their knowledge gained in the classroom to create F1 and F2 generations. At this point, genetic mutations are introduced by the teacher to go into further depth. I really enjoyed this article and would use it in my own classroom. Finnerty did a great job explaining very detailed, step by step instructions, and she also provided templates and charts to use. Finally, she showed ways to extend this activity into a unit about natural selection and evolution. What a fun, hands-on activity that will benefit all learners, especially visual learners.

Paper pet genetics

This was a very informative article. It provided just enough detail so that I could use the lesson in my own classroom.

Paper Pets

This article explains how genetics and inheritance of traits over generations can be taught in a middle school class over a period of time using several paper and pencil activities. Genetic... See More

This article explains how genetics and inheritance of traits over generations can be taught in a middle school class over a period of time using several paper and pencil activities. Genetics and mutations are introduced with these paper pets as well as how a change in the environment can change dominant traits. This article provides all the information needed to carry out the activities in the classroom.

Hands-on Minds-on Genetics

I really like the detailed information and ideas provided in this article! I have completed a similar activity with my students, but I did not have the students create “generations” of crazy... See More

I really like the detailed information and ideas provided in this article! I have completed a similar activity with my students, but I did not have the students create “generations” of crazy critters or paper pets to “see” what happens as their critters/pets had offspring. This activity would assist with helping students develop a strong conceptual understanding on heredity and genetics. In addition, this activity would work great in a 5E learning cycle model. It could be implemented within the explain and elaborate cycles. The creation of the paper pets provides a hands-on explain cycle, and the discussion/discovery on the impact of mutations and natural selections on the paper pets offers a hands-on minds-on elaboration. Overall, the article provides clear directions along with student worksheets on an activity that would provide a minds-on hands-on learning opportunity on genetics and heredity. I am looking forward to trying this one with my students.

Great low cost activity

This article has students making paper pets using specific characteristics that the teacher defines. The students then go through a series of crosses. Students work on Punnett squares and ... See More

This article has students making paper pets using specific characteristics that the teacher defines. The students then go through a series of crosses. Students work on Punnett squares and pedigrees. As the teacher, you can introduce mutations and look at characteristics that aide in survival of the species. This activity has great potential to be large or small as needed in the classroom. For teachers with small to no budget, this has easy implementation.

Excellent activity

This activity that can be done over several small periods of time as student practice of genetics concepts or as a final assessment provides a great, low cost way for students to practice ge... See More

This activity that can be done over several small periods of time as student practice of genetics concepts or as a final assessment provides a great, low cost way for students to practice genetics without involving any live subjects. The explanations are clear and to the point as to how to implement this lesson in your classroom.