Next Generation Science Standards - Activity LIsting

The Teacher Notes present a sequence of activities that will help students understand the basic structure and function of proteins and DNA.

To understand how genes influence our characteristics, students learn that different versions of a protein can result in different characteristics, and a gene in the DNA determines which version of a protein is synthesized by a person’s cells.

This information is conveyed through a PowerPoint with a sequence of discussion questions and videos, a Student Handout, and an optional hands-on learning activity. This sequence can be used in an introductory unit on biological molecules or to introduce a unit on molecular biology.

In this hands-on, minds-on activity, students use model chromosomes and answer analysis and discussion questions to learn how a child inherits one copy of each gene from each parent via the processes of meiosis and fertilization.

Students first analyze how the processes of meiosis and fertilization result in the alternation between diploid and haploid cells in the human lifecycle.

Students analyze the results of crossing over and independent assortment to learn how meiosis produces gametes with millions of gametes with millions of different combinations of alleles.

As they model meiosis and fertilization, students follow the alleles of a human gene from the parents' body cells through gametes to zygotes. Thus, students learn how a person inherits one copy of each gene from each of his/her parents.

They learn how the possible outcomes of meiosis and fertilization are summarized in a Punnett square.

A final brief section contrasts sexual reproduction with asexual reproduction.

This activity can be used to introduce meiosis and fertilization or to review these processes. (NGSS)

Download Student Handout: PDF format or Word format

In this hands-on, minds-on activity, students learn how the cell cycle produces genetically identical daughter cells.

They use model chromosomes and answer analysis and discussion questions to learn how DNA replication, mitosis and cytokinesis work together to ensure that each new cell gets a complete set of chromosomes with a complete set of genes. The model chromosomes are labeled with the alleles of several human genes, and students learn how the alleles influence phenotypic characteristics.

To understand how a single cell (the fertilized egg) can develop into the trillions of cells in a human body, students analyze an exponential growth model for the increase in number of cells. The final section provides a brief introduction to cellular differentiation.

This activity can be used as an introduction to the cell cycle and mitosis or to reinforce understanding of these topics.

In our follow-up meiosis and fertilization activity (/sci_edu/waldron/#meiosis) students learn how the movement of gene-carrying chromosomes during meiosis and fertilization results in the inheritance of genes. (NGSS)

Download Student Handout: PDF format or Word format

Newer Version Available

The activity below has a new and improved version available as two separate handouts; this older version is available as an archive to teachers still using it. Please find the new version at: Mitosis - How Each New Cell Gets a Complete Set of Genes and Meiosis and Fertilization – Understanding How Genes Are Inherited.

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In the  hands-on activity, Mitosis, Meiosis and Fertilization, students use model chromosomes to simulate the processes of mitosis, meiosis and fertilization, and they answer questions designed to promote understanding of these processes. To demonstrate the principle that genes are transmitted from parents to offspring through the processes of meiosis and fertilization, students follow two alleles of a gene through gametes to zygotes as they model meiosis and fertilization. Students also learn how a mistake in meiosis can result in Down Syndrome.

In this minds-on analysis and discussion activity, students interpret evidence concerning natural selection in the peppered moth. The evidence includes (1) the genetic basis for the different color forms of peppered moths, (2) mortality differences between the color forms in different environments, and (3) a history of correlated changes in the environment and the proportion of moths with each color form.

This activity will help students to consolidate a scientifically accurate understanding of the process of natural selection. 

(This activity is very similar to the last section of the hands-on activity Evolution by Natural Selection.)

This minds-on, hands-on activity begins with an anchoring phenomenon, how a person’s breathing changes when he/she is re-breathing the air in a plastic bag. Students develop a negative feedback model of how the changes in breathing stabilize blood levels of O2 and CO2.

Then, students use a negative feedback model to understand temperature regulation, homeostasis, and how a change in setpoint can result in a fever.

Next, students analyze how failures of negative feedback regulation of blood glucose levels can result in diabetes.

Finally, students compare and contrast positive and negative feedback. Throughout this activity, students learn relevant human physiology.

An Appendix for the Teacher Preparation Notes suggests an optional activity in which each student group investigates a question or hypothesis concerning negative feedback, homeostasis and changes in breathing. 

Download Student Handout: PDF format or Word format

This minds-on, hands-on activity begins with the driving question of how a tiny seed grows into a giant sequoia tree.

To address this question, students first consider what types of molecules and atoms are in plants. Next, they analyze data from an experiment on changes in plant biomass in the light vs. dark. Then, they conduct an experiment to evaluate changes in CO₂ concentration in the air around plants in the light vs. dark.

Students interpret these data to develop an increasingly accurate and evidence-based model of the contributions of photosynthesis and cellular respiration to changes in plant biomass.

This activity counteracts several common misconceptions about plant growth, photosynthesis, and cellular respiration. (NGSS)

In this analysis and discussion activity, students develop their understanding of the effects of environmental factors on population growth by analyzing the recovery of endangered species and how growth of bacterial populations can cause food poisoning.

Students learn about the processes that result in exponential or logistic population growth, interpret data from several investigations, and apply their understanding to policy questions.

This analysis and discussion activity contains three "soap opera" episodes that help students to understand the principles of inheritance and the relevance of genetics to everyday life. In the first episode, students answer the probing questions of a skeptical father who wants to know how his baby could have albinism when neither he nor his wife have albinism.

The second episode, "Were the babies switched?", covers the concepts of codominance, incomplete dominance, and polygenic inheritance, and reinforces student understanding that the alleles of a gene give the instructions for making different versions of a protein.

In the third episode, students analyze sex-linked inheritance. Each episode can be used separately or with other episodes, depending on your teaching goals.

The Student Handout is available in the first two attached files. The Teacher Notes, available in the last two attached files, provide instructional suggestions and background information and explain how this activity is aligned with the Next Generation Science Standards.