Family Trees Lesson Plan

Summary

Lesson plan about inheritance, phenotypes, genotyoes, and dominance/recessiveness

Family Trees is a customizable lesson plan that can be adapted for elementary, middle, and high school students. Students learn about self and cross-fertilization in flowers and will explore the contributions of important scientists like Gregor Mendel, Reginald Punnett, and Charles Darwin. More advanced students can tackle Punnett squares to predict genetic traits in flowers. Using simple classroom materials like cups, water, and food coloring, students can observe how genetic material is mixed during reproduction. The relationship between phenotype and genotype is also examined.