Serendip is an independent site partnering with faculty at multiple colleges and universities around the world. Happy exploring!

Genetics Review Jeopardy Game

This game reviews genetics, with 25 questions of varying levels of difficulty. To access the game, open the PowerPoint attachment below; in full screen display, click on the slideshow icon on the right in the bottom bar. Clicking on a number in the game board will bring you to a question. When that question has been answered click on the yellow box in the lower right corner and you'll be brought back to the game board screen. Spaces for questions that have already been answered will now appear blank, just like on the TV show.

Two ways of organizing the Jeopardy game are recommended in the Teacher Notes available in the second attachment below.

Attachment	Size
genetics jeopardy.ppt	121 KB
Jeopardy TN.docx	27.29 KB

Comments

Independent assortment question

Submitted by danblu (guest) on Tue, 06/13/2017 - 5:24pm.

This is great! Thanks for sharing this.

I noticed a minor issue with the question about independent assortment:

"The law of independent assortment describes the inheritance of genes on different chromosomes and the behavior of chromosomes during..."
The choices are meiosis I, meiosis II, mitosis or all of the above.

I would argue that the answer is meiosis 1 and meiosis 2. I think most people would say that independent assortment occurs among homologous pairs of chromosomes during meiosis 1. However, due to crossing over in meiosis 1, we see sister chromatids that are no longer identical. These sister chromatids can 'independently' assort during meiosis 2 depending on their alignment on the metaphase plate before cell division.

I edited this question to have the students select all the correct responses and I removed the 'all of the above' option.

Let me know if you agree or disagree!

Independent assortment comment

Submitted by iwaldron on Fri, 06/16/2017 - 6:20am.

Your argument makes sense to me, but I have never heard independent assortment used the way you are proposing. So, I checked three genetics textbooks to see if perhaps I had missed something, and in all three cases their discussion of independent assortment referred exclusively to meiosis 1. So, I agree with your biological interpretation, but pedagogically the interpretation in the game and the textbooks probably is the best approach for most teachers. This is just one of many simplifications we use in teaching biology!

Thank you for the response.

Submitted by danblu (guest) on Fri, 06/16/2017 - 11:44am.

Thank you for the response. The textbook I've used (Campbell's 1st Canadian Edition - 2014) actually does make this distinction:

"This law [of independent assortment ] applies only to genes (allele pairs) located on different chromosomes - that is, on chromosomes that are not homologous - or very far apart on the same chromosome." (p. 288, chap. 14- the next chapter discusses the chromosomal basis for genes on the same chromosome independently assorting)

I actually find this particular point to be a really great opportunity to have students apply their knowledge of crossing-over to figure out that we actually do see independent assortment during meiosis II. I ask my class, "can we have independent assortment during meiosis II?" and the answers are split between yes/no. This leads to a discussion. Without considering crossing over, we wouldn't see any effect of independent assortment in meiosis II. But with crossing over, you can! I like how this discussion forces the students to make connections between different topics.

I totally understand the need to simplify and while some may consider this a detail worth skipping, I think it extends the learning process to deeper levels (e.g. higher levels of Bloom's taxonomy). And of course even adding this detail is still simplifying the processes.

Thanks again for sharing your resources and getting us instructors thinking more about pedagogy!

And thank you!

Submitted by iwaldron on Sun, 06/18/2017 - 11:31am.

Thank you for your thoughtful and informative response. This dialogue should provide a good basis for each teacher to decide the best approach for his/her students.

Ingrid

answers

Submitted by Christle Hart (guest) on Wed, 05/04/2016 - 11:51am.

Are there answers for this anywhere? A teacher left this for us to play but as a sub I have no idea what the correct answers are.

Answer key

Submitted by iwaldron on Thu, 05/05/2016 - 8:29am.

Unfortunately, we do not have an answer key for this activity. Also, I am somewhat dubious about the educational value of playing this game if you do not know enough to be able to explain why certain answers are correct and other answers would be incorrect. An alternative would be to use one or more parts of Soap Opera Genetics which reviews genetics and has a great deal of background information in the Teacher Preparation Notes and a key, available upon request to me.

Ingrid Waldron (iwaldron@sas.upenn.edu)

Genetics

Submitted by Shelby baldwin (guest) on Wed, 11/18/2015 - 11:53pm.

How to do it

Jeopardy Instructions

Submitted by iwaldron on Thu, 11/19/2015 - 10:18am.

Please see the instructions given above. If you have any specific questions that come up when you try to implement these instructions, please let me know.

Ingrid Waldron