Updated January 2023

Name: Callie Carlson Date of lesson (for field):

Content Area: Biology

Course Title & Grade Level: Biology, 9th and 10th grade
Standards:
HS-LS3-1. Ask questions to clarify relationships about the role of DNA and chromosomes in coding the
instructions for characteristic traits passed from parents to offspring.
Objectives:

Content Objective—
Students will be able to arrange flowers into groups of parents and offspring and describe why they chose that
grouping .
Student-friendly Objective—
I can arrange flowers into groups of parents and offspring and describe why they are related using genetics
terms learned in class (traits, DNA, chromosomes)
.

Assessment:
- Walking around during literacy strategy allows me to see if students are participating and discussing
the groups with their table. They have not been taught this material yet (inductive learning) so I just
want them to be able to make connections and justify their response. If ¼ of students are confused, I
can rework instructions to better explain them to the class. If a few students are struggling I can work
with them individually or point them in the direction of some of the shared characteristics. (formative)
- Students will turn in their grouped flower families and their explanations. Like walking around, I just
want to see if they are participating and making connections. (formative)
- Asking questions throughout the lesson allows me to see if students are following alone and
understand the information. If half of the class is not able to answer the questions, I would need to
take a step back and reteach the information on the spot. (formative)
- Having students write questions helps them meet the state standard and be curious. If half the class is
struggling to write a question, I could work with them to hear some of their thought processes and
help them turn those ideas into questions. (formative)

Proactive Management:
- Voice: telling students to groups cards into parents (2) and offspring and explain their decision. They
will work with their table and one person will open the document with the flowers.
- Movement: One student will be open the document and the rest of the group will arrange themselves
to see the screen.
- Task: students will work on grouping flowers and type their explanations on the worksheet
Instructional Strategies:
-modeling: I will model making a question from the sentence stems.
- literacy strategy: inductive learning: students are going to start doing a grouping strategy and make
connections themselves by describing why they grouped the cards that way. Then we will learn about the
content.
- Cornell notes: students will take notes using a graphic organizer split with terms and notes.
-group discussions: table groups will pair with another table to compare grouping and explain how they
grouped them.

Note Taking Strategy:

Students will take notes using the Cornell notes template. The presentation that goes with this lesson will
have important terms highlighted. I will tell students that these important terms will go on the term side of the
 Updated January 2023
note sheet and the rest of the notes will fill in the other side of the sheet. At the end of class, students can
write questions and or summary notes for the lesson. The note sheet will also have a section for them to write
3 facts from the video down .
Questions:
- Why did you group the flowers the way you did? (evaluate)
- What questions did you come up with? (evaluate)
- If pink is dominant and we mix 2 pink flowers what color will the offspring be? (apply)
- If we mix pink and white flowers, what color will the offspring be? (apply)
- Why didn’t the offspring have white petals? (understand)
- If we mix 2 white flowers what color would the offspring be? (apply)
- Do you think this works for all traits?
Beginning of the lesson:
Review: In our last unit we learned about mitosis. For this unit we are going to talk about genetics. DNA and
chromosomes are important for this unit too!
Preview: Today we are going to groups cards into parent and offspring, describe why they are grouped that
way, and ask questions about it.. Then we will talk about how traits are passed from parents to offspring.
Hook: What are some traits that people have? (hair color, height, eye color, etc)

The Lesson:
- We are going to do our class a little backwards today! We are going to start with an activity and then
talk about what you learned and came up with.
- Directions: (I do) (3 min)
o You have been given a link to a document with different flowers for you to sort into families.
For this activity, our groups will have 2 parents and any number of offspring. Not all families
look this way but for this activity we will group them this way.
o So, you will work with your table to group the flowers to have 2 parents and offspring and
write 1 or more sentences describing why you grouped them this way on the worksheet. There
is not one right answer, you just need to be able to explain why you grouped them that way.
You will have 10 minutes to work on this together!
o Only one person should have the document open and the rest of the table should help them.
 Students can make families with any number of offspring as long as they can justify it,
but the cards were made with groups of 3 in mind.
o Students will group cards into groups of parents and offspring.
o Give students time to open the document. Only one person needs to have it open for each table
and give them time to split them up and type their explanations and questions. ( 10 min) (you
do together)
 During 10 minutes of work time, walk around the classroom to help students with
questions and hear students thought processes.
o Why did you group the flowers the way you did? (5 min) (you do together)
o Each group will pair up with another group and explain why they grouped the flowers the way
they did.

- Students will then write 1 question about heredity using one of the sentence stems on the worksheet
and turn it. (3 min)
 Model writing a question based on my own thoughts/wonderings to show students that
any question they have about genetics will work.
 How do scientist know what gene matches a trait?
 Provided sentence stems:
 How do scientists know…?
 Why are offspring…?
 Updated January 2023
 What shows how…?
- What questions did you come up with? (3 min) (we do)
- After students make groups of parents and offspring, we will talk about different how scientists are
able to group parents and offspring/ predict offspring from parents.
- Phenotype vs genotype: (3 min) (I do)
o Phenotype is the physical characteristic an organism shows (petal color, petal shape)
o Genotype is the genes in the DNA that code for the phenotype. (genes that code for the color
and shapes)
Gregor Mendel: (7 min) (I do)
- The founder of genetics is Gregor Mendel. He found out most of what we know about genetics using
pea plants.
Video about Mendel and pea plant experiment: Gregor Mendel Pea Plant Experiment (4 min)
 While watching the video, you will write 3 facts you learned from the video on
designated spot on note sheet.
 Students will write down 3 facts on the note sheet.
o Mendel was a monk who worked in a garden and learned how traits were passed from parents
to offspring.
o Trait: each variant of a character (ex: pink, white, yellow) that is inherited
 Until him people thought parents’ genes mixed like paint to form a new offspring.
o He crossed pea plants (2 parents) and ended up with offspring with many different colors,
heights, and styles of pea plants. This led him to the concluding that not all traits will show up
all the time and some traits can be hidden in offspring.
 Mendel proved that genes stay separate but interact to form a physical characteristic.
 Dominant: trait that show up when it is there.
 Recessive: trait that only show up when the dominant trait is not present.
Examples ( 5 min) (we do)
 An example from our activity could be flower color.
o Use cards to model parents and offspring:
o If pink is dominant and we mix 2 pink flowers what color will the
offspring be?
 pink
o If we mix pink and white flowers, what color will the offspring be?
 pink
 Why didn’t the offspring have white petals?
 The white trait is recessive, and pink is dominant so the
white will not be expressed if pink is also there. The pink
overpowers the white trait.
o If we mix 2 white flowers what color would the offspring be?
o Do you think this works for all traits?( 5 min) (we do)
 No, some traits have multiple options, not either or, like height and skin color.
 Now, one of the cards showed a flower with both pink and white petals. Some traits do
not follow the recessive and dominate pattern. For this class most traits we encounter
will have complete dominance.
 Complete dominance: if the dominant trait is there, it alone will be expressed (show
up). But there are other types of dominance that we will talk about tomorrow.

Closure:
Procedural— students will put away notes and other materials and make sure their worksheets from the
beginning of class is turned in.
 Updated January 2023
Content Summary— Today we learned used some genetic terms to describe what happens when we cross
different color flowers. You were able to group the flowers into family based on common traits and asked
questions about this process. Tomorrow we will look at other types of dominance that explains the white and
pink flower and learn about the probability of certain traits.
References:

Nowicki, S. (2019). Chapter 6 Meiosis and Mendel. In Holt McDougal Biology. essay, Holt McDougal.

Silver, H., Strong, R., & Perini, M. (2007). The Strategic Teacher: Selecting the right research-based
strategy for every lesson. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Merrill.

Lesson Plan Reflection (required):

1) Highlight Culturally Responsive Teaching (CRT) components within your lesson.
Write a paragraph (3-5 sentences) elaborating on the intentionally planned CRT components of your
lesson. How did you leverage student assets, thinking, language and cultural backgrounds to make
learning relevant while demonstrating high expectations for all students?

In my lesson students are grouping flowers into parents and offspring. Not all families have 2 parents and
offspring, so I made sure to mention that in my lesson but stated that is how we are going to split up the flowers
for the activity. I also wanted to model some of the parts of the lesson and use guided practice so to help
students see, hear, and read directions. Students will be provided with sentence stems to help them write
questions to help them get the ball rolling.

2) Italicize Universal Design for Learning (UDL) components within your lesson.
Write a paragraph (3-5 sentences) elaborating on the intentionally planned UDL components
(representation, action & expression, engagement) of your lesson. What strategies did you use to meet
the needs of ALL learners?
In this lesson, students will work together to group flowers into parents and offspring, this allows
students to make connections themselves without being told the information. They will be able to learn
the content in a different way. We will also be using a video to learn some of the content so they can see
the information in a different way than just a lecture.