Brittany Granquist

ELL Lesson Plan: Explaining Heredity

Date: 13 December 2010

Grade Level/Subject: 4th grade/Science

Prerequisite Knowledge:

 Students must have studied fractions, specifically the following: ¼, ½,

¾, and 1

 Students must have exposure to the proper procedures for partner

work.

 ELL students must have practice filling out vocabulary sheet during
class time.

Approximate Time: 2 Instruction periods of 45 minutes

Language Objectives:

 Students will be able to utilize key vocabulary terms to describe (in L1

or L2) how we inherit traits.

 Students will be able to use L1 (or code-switch) to define Academic

vocabulary using flashcards and pictures to enhance understanding.

 ELL students will be able to take notes on basic vocabulary during

class time using L1, L2, or pictures to aid in comprehension.

Key Vocabulary
Academic: Basic:

Heredity Sex (gender)

Dominant Female & Male

Recessive Top/Bottom

Inherited Right/Left

Trait

Gene

Genotype

Student Objectives/Student Outcomes:

  Students will be able to classify what can and cannot be inherited.
 Students will be able to explain what heredity is.
 Students will be able to distinguish the difference between dominant
and recessive genes.
 Students will be able to simulate breeding using a Punnett Square and
marshmallows.
 Students will be able to describe what a trait is, and describe their own
as they relate to their parents. (In the case that students do not have
parents and/or live with another guardian: Students will be able to
describe what a trait is, and describe a family member or friends as
they relate to another person of familial relation.)

Content Standards:
State Goal 12: Understand the fundamental concepts, principles and
interconnections of the life, physical and earth/space sciences.

A. Know and apply concepts that explain how living things function, adapt
and change.

2b. Categorize features as either inherited or learned (e.g., flower color

or eye color is inherited; language is learned

Materials/Resources/Technology:

 SMART Board
 Marshmallows (2 bags of large, white and 2 bags of small, white)
 Punnet Square worksheet (see attached)
 Journal paper
 Flash cards (6 per student)
 Mirrors (1 per student)
 Basic vocabulary worksheet for ELLs (see attached)

Implementation:

Time

Opening of lesson:

Day 1: 45 minutes

1. The teacher should first pass out the vocabulary

worksheet to ELL students.

2. In order to begin the lesson on heredity, the teacher

should pull up several pictures/images on SMART Board
 including: eyes, a ruler, a boy with blonde hair, a person
with a dialogue bubble saying Hola!, and a church. The
teacher should have these ready on the board before
students arrive for class.

3. Once students arrive, the teacher should say: “Today we

are going to learn about heredity. Can anyone tell me
what they think this word means?” The teacher should
write heredity on the blackboard next to the SMART Board
under the title “Key Vocabulary.” After a short discussion
about what volunteering students think heredity means,
the teacher should say, “When we talk about heredity, we
are talking about what traits we get from our parents.
What are some other words that mean the same thing as
“trait.” The teacher should take several examples,
deciding whether or not they are worthy of writing on the
board. The teacher should write “trait” under the “Key
Vocabulary” title on the blackboard, and write several of
the synonyms identified next to it.

4. The teacher should say that each of us has many traits

that make us unique. She/he should then describe the
traits of 2-3 students in the class.

5. The teacher should then say, “As a class, together, we are

going to decide whether or not the traits on the board are
inherited or not. Remember inherited means we get
these traits from our parents’ genes. This can be a little
tricky to understand.” The teacher should write inherited
and genes under the “Key Vocabulary” list. She/he should
then say “heredity and inherited have similar meaning.”
She/he should underline the “here/heri” in the
aforementioned words. “It is important to think about
heredity when it comes to our parents’ genes. What we
inherit from our parents is given to us starting even before
we are born. Genes from our mother mix with genes from
our father, and the end result is a new and special human
with traits similar to his or her parents.”

6. At this point the teacher should then start by labeling the

pictures on the board (respective order): “eye color,
height, hair color, language, and religion.” After labeling
each image, the teacher should ask students: “Is this trait
inherited? Raise your hand in the air if you think that it is
inherited. The teacher should move inherited traits to the
left side of the board and learned traits to the right side of
the board. Be sure to label the categories once activity is
 completed. (The teacher should model by raising his/her
hand in the air) How many of you have similar eye color as
your parents? How many of you have similar height as
your parents? How many of you have similar hair color as
your parents? How many of you speak a language that
your parents do not? How many of you know someone
who has a different religion from his/her parents?”

7. If students have trouble realizing that language is learned,

remind them that some people are able to speak two or
more languages while their parents are only able to speak
one. You study at school to learn a new language.
Describe similar situations with regard to religion.

8. Once the whole class activity is over (SMART Board

activity), the teacher should pass out journal paper to
each student and describe the following activity: “So we
have mentioned what traits are, and I have given some
examples of the traits of several people in this room. Now
you all are going to be able to describe your own traits, or
characteristics.”

9. At this point the teacher should pull up a blank SMART

notebook page, and pick up a mirror. He/she should model
how to do the activity by thinking aloud. He/she should
hold the mirror up to his/her face and think aloud about
his/her own traits, writing down each mentioned trait as
he/she says them. Include: eye color, hair color, skin color,
ear shape/size, etc.

10. The teacher should then tell students that they should
write down their own traits after looking in the mirror.
He/she should pass out a mirror to each student. The
teacher should tell students that they should complete
this activity in whichever language they choose. (L1 or
L2).

11. Students should be given time to complete this task (5-

10 minutes)

12. The teacher should then ask students to consider what

traits they have inherited from each parent. The teacher
should model this by using pictures of his/her parents on
the SMART Board. The teacher should have both pictures
of his/her parents on the notebook file and circle the part
of his/her parent’s face that he/she has inherited. For
example, the teacher should draw attention to eye color,
 and then circle the parent’s eyes from whom they have
inherited the trait.

*If the teacher does not feel comfortable using his/her own
pictures or self as an example in any of the above activities,
he/she should use pictures of celebrities.

*If there is an adopted child in the class, the teacher should

come prepared with 3 pictures for them to study: a celebrity,
that celebrity’s mother and that celebrity’s father. The
teacher should explain the alternative assignment privately.

13. Students should share with a neighbor what traits they

know they have inherited from their mother and what traits
they know they have inherited from their father. Students
with ESL should share with another student with the same L1
if possible.

14. To end the day, the teacher should tell students to go

home that night and think about how they are like their
parents, and if they were right about their descriptions in
class.

Procedures:

Day 2: 45 minutes

1. To introduce the lesson, the teacher should tell students

that they may have realized that they have some traits
that their parents do not, or that they have some traits
that only one parent has, while the other does not. He/she
should say, “Today we are going to do an activity that
helps us think about how we are getting our traits.”

2. “First we must understand what the following words

mean: dominant and recessive.” The teacher should write
the words on the board (SMART and blackboard). The
teacher should ask students if they think they know what
the word means. The teacher should then pull up pictures
to help students understand the significance. The teacher
should bring a picture of a cartoon image lifting up a
heavy weight with muscles under “dominant” and a
picture of a cartoon image having trouble lifting up a
heavy weight under “recessive.” The teacher should say,
“Dominant means the trait has more strength and that
when paired with a recessive trait will win. For example,
who do you think would win in a fight, this guy (point to
strong man) or this guy (point to weak man)?” The teacher
 should be sure to set up this notebook with dominant on
the left side and recessive on the right side, separated
into columns.*

3. The teacher should then tell students what traits are

dominant and what traits are recessive. He/she should
draw a picture of the trait to the right of the column, and
then write “Dark eyes” in the dominant column, and “light
eyes” in the recessive column. He/she should also, when
possible point out specific examples of the traits.

-Dimples (dominant), no dimples (recessive)

-Unattached earlobes (dominant), attached (recessive)

-Ability to roll tongue (dominant), inability (recessive)

4. The teacher should pull up pictures of two people, and
ask questions related to dominant and recessive genes.
“Which person, the male or the female, has the dominant
eye color/presence of dimples/earlobe characteristics?”

5. The teacher should then pass out the Punnett Square

worksheet and tell students that they are going to choose
one of the traits listed on the board and write a possible
genotype for the trait. Tell students “do not worry about
this word yet, it will make more sense after the activity.”

6. The teacher should model this activity on the board.

He/she should say, “We will do one together for having
dark eyes. If someone has dark eyes, they can have a DD
genotype (explain that the D’s simply stand for Dark
eyes). The capital D’s mean that there are TWO dominant
genes. Or if a person has dark eyes, they can have a Dd
genotype. What do you think the lowercase d stands for?
Remember, when a dominant and recessive gene are
paired together, who would win? (Point to the strong
image). The Dd genotype means that the person has one
dominant gene and one recessive gene, but that the
dominant trait won.”

7. The teacher should then write the DD on top of the

Punnett Square and the Dd on the left side of the Punnett
Square. He/she should say that the genotype on the right
side is from the mother and the genotype on the top is
from the father. So, both of the parents have dark eyes.
“Let’s see the likelihood that their child will have dark
 eyes.”

8. The teacher should model how to find the genotypes.

Remind students that it is a lot like doing multiplication.
Tell them that the new pairs are what genotypes are.

9. Ask a student to come up to the board to circle the

genotypes that have a dominant gene in them, or a capital
D.

10. Ask: “what is the fraction of dominant genotypes with

dominant genes in them? (Child’s name) circled 4, and
there are 4 total boxes. What is the fraction? What does
this mean? Does the child have any possibility of having
light eyes?”

Summary/Closing:

1. The teacher should then give students an opportunity to

do this. But instead of using letters, they will be using
marshmallows. The teacher will pass out a handful of large
and small marshmallows to each student. The teacher will
say, “The large marshmallows are going to represent the
dominant genes. What do you think the small marshmallows
are going to represent?”

2. The teacher should write/draw this on the blackboard.

3. Students will be instructed to choose a trait from the

ones on the board and that they will represent the genotype
using the Punnett squares and their marshmallows. The
teacher should say, “Please get into pairs, the person to the
right of you. Once you think you have completed the
genotype correctly, please raise your hand and I will come
over and I’d like to talk about it a bit.”

4. Students who finish early should be instructed to try

more traits.

5. Students will be assigned to do flashcards for the

vocabulary words for homework.

6. The teacher will say to end the lesson, “Just like humans
have inherited traits, so do animals and plants like the ones
we have studied in our unit on environments. We will look
more at this soon.”

Student Assessment:
 -Students will be assessed on completion of the Punnett
Square worksheet.

-ELL students will be assessed on their completion of the

vocabulary worksheet.

-Students will be assessed on the number of completed flash

cards, out of 6 (points).

-Students will be assessed on journal activity of their own

traits. Full points (4) will be given if they list 4+ traits, and a
point will be deducted for each trait they are missing (3/4
points for 3 listed traits, 2/4 points for 2 listed traits, ¼ points
for 1 listed trait, and 0 points for 0 listed traits.)

Punnett Square: What traits could your child have?

Male:
1 2

3 4

List genotypes: __________ (box 1), _________ (box 2),

__________ (box 3), _________ (box 4)
Color the dominant boxes RED and the recessive boxes PINK.
What fraction of the boxes is RED: _________ (number of red
boxes)
4 (boxes total)

Vocabulary for “Heredity” Lesson

Use the language of your choice to take notes and draw pictures for the
following vocabulary words:

1. Sex (gender):
_____________________________________________________________________________
____________.

Draw a picture to help you remember what this word means:

2. Female: (Color this word PINK)

_____________________________________________________________________________
____________.

3. Male: (Color this word BLUE)

_____________________________________________________________________________
____________.

4. Top:

_____________________________________________________________________________
____________.

5. Bottom:

_____________________________________________________________________________
____________.

6. Left:

_____________________________________________________________________________
____________.

7. Right:

_____________________________________________________________________________
____________.

*Color the “bottom” of this box BLUE.

*Color the “top” of this box RED.

*Color the “left” side of this box ORANGE.

*Color the “right” side of this box PURPLE.