Genetics Unit Plans

Genetics Unit Plans

A genetics unit spans Mendel to Watson and Crick and, in middle school, the focus is on variations. Students learn what causes variations and how they are passed on to offspring.

Here are 10 resources to implement in your genetics unit plans:

1. Genetics Interactive Notes -Genetics Interactive slides including Mendel, simple dominance, incomplete dominance, and codominance with Punnett Squares. While teaching virtually, interactive notes allow students to pay attention without struggling to keep up with copying notes yet they still have the interactive notes to use later as a study tool.
2. Alien Genetics (also available as a Jack O’Lantern or as a Snowman)Use these drag and drop Interactive Google Slides to create an alien using the inheritance rules of 9 phenotypes of aliens – face shape, color, number of eyes, number of arms, and so on.
3. Human Heredity hands on activity Observe phenotypes of 5 human inherited traits in your classmates and predict which genotypes they can have in this hands on activity.
4. Punnett Squares magic reveal puzzle If your students know the definitions associated with Punnett Squares, they will be rewarded with a magic picture of a palm tree.
5. Punnett Squares worksheets  -15 pages of Punnett Square practice problems including simple dominance, incomplete dominance and codominance. Assign each section separately or all at once for a unit review – hours of practice. Use as a Google Doc or print.
6. Punnett Squares Interactive Practice Problems –50 Interactive slides that allow students to drag and drop correct answers to demonstrate their understanding of genotype, phenotype, dominant and recessive traits, homozygous, heterozygous, and monohybrid crosses.
7. Punnett Squares Boom Cards  –This 50 card Boom deck can be used to learn, review, and practice Punnett Squares and the application of vocabulary words such as heterozygous, homozygous, dominant, recessive, phenotype, and genotype.
8. DNA Interactive notes  – DNA Interactive slides including structure of DNA, DNA replication, and protein synthesis for middle school.
9. DNA test kits enrichment activity –This resource addresses the NGSS standards of critical thinking and communication skills including scientific literacy which apply to all of the benchmarks.  This activity contains a 2 page document about DNA test kits, and a 2 page worksheet including analysis questions applying what you’ve learned.
10. DNA Boom cards –This 23 card Boom deck can be used to learn the facts about DNA and mRNA as well as Watson, Crick, Wilkins, Franklin, and Chargaff.

Download a free Google Forms assessment

Assess your students’ understanding of this unit with this free Google Forms assessment. It includes 50 multiple choice questions and is completely editable. Click here to make a copy.

Standards Based

This unit addresses the Next Generation Science Standards of MS-LS3 Heredity: Inheritance and Variation of Traits.