LESSON PLAN

STEM- GENERAL BIOLOGY 1 & 2

Grade Level: Grade 11

Time: 1 hour

I. Objectives:
By the end of the lesson, the students should be able to:
 predict genotypes and phenotypes of parents and offspring using the laws of
inheritance;
 differentiate heterozygous from homozygous alleles; and
 determine the misconceptions about heredity.

II. Subject Matter:

Topic: Mendel’s Laws of Inheritance
References:
Gerona, Z., & Mallorca, M. (2009). Biology (2nd ed., Vol. II). Quezon,
Manila: Abiva Publishing House.
Rabago, C., & Lagunzad, C. (2010). Functional Biology (2nd ed.). Quezon
City, Manila: Vibal Publishing House.
Obra, R. (2011). Basic Biology (1st ed., Vol. 1). Quezon City, Manila:
St.Bernadette Publishing House Corporation.
Materials: Tarpaulin, cartolina, masking tape, white boards and markers
Teaching Strategy:

III. Procedure
A. Preparatory Activities
1. Routine
 Greetings
Good morning, class! I’m Sir Dalisay.
 Prayer
Before we start, let us all stand up for a moment of prayer.
Can you please lead us in prayer.
Thank you.
 Seating Arrangement
Before you seat down, kindly arrange your chairs and pick up the pieces of
trash under your chairs and throw them in the trash can.
 Attendance
Is everybody present today?
Good (Great/ good, only one will miss our new topic)
2. Recall
So before we start, let us first have a brief recall of our yesterday’s
discussion. Can someone tell me how many chromosomes does each body cell
have?
 Correct, human cells contain 46 chromosomes which contain the DNA
which makes each cell unique. And 23 of these chromosomes were inherited from
a person’s father and 23 from his mother. So we can say that each person is made
up of combination of genetic codes from both parents. We also mentioned that
chromosomes contain gene. In fact, around 20,000 genes in each chromosome.
Genes determine your traits that you inherited from your parents. Speaking of
heredity, our lesson for today has something to do with heredity.

B. Motivation
I know you all have pieces of idea about heredity and maybe they are
similar to some of the ideas of the ancient scientist. So before I discuss about
heredity, let’s have a group game. How many are you in this class? In this game,
you have to write on the white board if the hypothesis is true up to now. Write
True if it is and False if it is not. Ready?

Concept no. 1: Pangene Hypothesis by Aristotle in the 4th Century BC.

Aristotle (Father of Science) believed that the contributions of traits from
the male and female parents to their offspring are very unequal. Female supplies
the “matter” or the substance while male supplies the “motion” or the condition.
His theory held that particles from all parts of the body come together to form the
eggs and sperm. And the changes that occurred in the various body parts during an
organism’s life could be passed on to the next generation.

So what do you think?

It’s false because acquired traits are not inheritable. For example the nice
muscle you develop couldn’t just be inherited by your children.

Concept no. 2: Blending hypothesis

In this hypothesis, there is a general belief that offspring possess
intermediate traits coming from both parents.
This is still incorrect because if it is true, all of us should look like our
parents only. But there are kids who look like their grandparents, uncles and aunts
instead right?

Concept no. 3: Blood Theory of Heredity

Scientists in the 19th century, including Charles Darwin (Father of
Evolution), believed that traits from parents are transmitted to their offspring by
blood. According to this theory, blood contains heredity information being passed
on not only from parents to offspring, but also from one generation to the next.
It is also not true. For example, I donate blood. My recipient will inherit my
traits and characteristics.
All of these beliefs are now considered as superstitions. Particularly with
the pioneering work of a monk who proved that all of these concepts were not true.

C. Lesson Proper
1. Activity
Our today’s topic has something to do with this pea. Do you know
that this pea helped someone to make a scientific discovery just like
Newton’s apple for gravity. This man is also known as the Father of
Genetics. Do you have any idea who that person is? Let me give you a clue.
The initials of his name are GM. I’ll give one recitation point if you can
give me the correct answer.

Correct. It’s Gregor Mendel.

So our topic for today is about Gregor Mendel’s 3 Laws of

Inheritance. But before we discuss about these laws, let us first know who
Gregor Mendel is.

Gregor Mendel is an Austrian monk at the distinguished monastery

at St. Thomas in the Czech Republic. He was born in 1822 and died in 1884
at the age of 62. He was a high school teacher of physics and natural history
who spent his free time conducting biological experiments near the
monastery. Some of the experiments he conducted involved the edible pea.

Garden peas have several varieties that have observable and

contrasting characteristics and are normally produced by self-pollination.

By deliberately crossing two different varieties of peas, that is

transferring the pollen of one variety to the pistil of another, he was able to
follow the inheritance of a single, easily distinguishable trait. It was from
this quantitative data that Mendel deduced the principles governing
inheritance. Mendel was able to produce hybrid offsprings for several
contrasting traits by cross-pollination.
For example, he crossed a tall garden pea with a short one. And a
yellow seeded plant with a green seeded plant. In each case, he observed
that the resulting first generation hybrids denoted by the symbol F1 showed
traits of only one parent. In his experiments on plants’ height, for example,
all the F1 hybrids were tall and on seed color, all F1 hybrids were yellow.
He called those traits that appeared in the first generation as dominant
(stronger) traits and traits that did not appear as recessive (weaker) traits.
This is known as Mendel’s Law of Dominance.
Law of Dominance states that “in a pair of alleles, only the dominant
trait would be expressed while the recessive allele would not.”
However, when Mendel allowed F1 generation to self-pollinate, to
produce the second hybrid f2 generation, both the dominant and recessive
traits reappeared. Moreover, both traits appeared in a constant proportion.
About ¾ of the plants showed the dominant traits and ¼ showed the
recessive traits. This quantitative approach to experimentation allowed
Mendel to deduce his second law, the law of segregation. In the law of
segregation, two alleles that determine the traits of an individual segregate
or separate during the formation of sex cells. During fertilization, allele once
again come together to form a genetic sequence that code for a physical
trait.
Mendel reasoned that there must be a purple color “factor” that
masks or dominates the white color “factor” in the F1 offspring, but that the
recessive (white color) “factor” is still present in the F1 offspring and
becomes separated or segregated from the dominant “factor” when F2
offspring are produced. These factors are now called genes. Their dominant
and recessive forms are called “alleles” which means an alternative form of
a gene.

So what is the last Mendel’s law of inheritance?

It is the Law of independent assortment.

Following one trait at a time enabled Mendel to simplify his
experiments and deduce the laws of dominance and segregation. However,
he expanded these monohybrid crosses to include two traits simultaneously
inherited, such as seed color and seed shape. He began with yellow and
round seeds (YYRR) which were dominant over green and wrinkled seeds
(yyrr)(P generation) then he cross fertilized them to get the F1 generation
(YyRr or all yellow round seeds). The F1 generation produces all yellow
and round seeds as expected from the principles of dominance and
segregation. However, if the F1 offspring are allowed to self-fertilize, nine
different genotypes and four different phenotypes are produced. In other
words, Mendel was able to show that yello and round seeds (YR) do not
always occur together and the presence ofone allele for theyellow seedtrait
(Y) has no impact on the presence of the allele for the round seed trait (R).
This is Mendel’s Law of Independent Assortment. The law of independent
assortment states that alleles of different genes are arranged independently
of one another during gamete (sperm and egg cells) formation.

P generation:
YYRR (yellow round seeds) X yyrr (green wrinkled seeds)
F1 generation:
YyRr (all yellow round seeds)
F2 generation:
9/16 are round yellow
3/16 are round green
3/16 are wrinkled yellow
1/16 are wrinkled green

Male gametes
Female YR Yr yR yr
Gametes YR YYRR YYRr YyRR YyRr
Yr YYRr YYrr YyRr Yyrr
yR YyRR YyRr yyRR yyRr
 yr YyRr Yyrr YYrr yyrr

As you may have noticed in the statement of laws, it frequently

mentioned about alleles. Aside from alleles, there are other terms you
should know concerning heredity. These are heterozygous, homozygous,
dominant and recessive, genotype and phenotype.

Homozygous: the same alleles + mixture of DNA from both parents

Heterozygous: different alleles + mixture of DNA from both parents

Game
Now, in relation to Mendel’s law, if we were to cross breed a red
colored flower with a white colored flower, what is the probability that it
would be red or white?
There is a simple diagram we can use to predict the final
combination of alleles of an offspring. This is called the Punnett Square.
The Punnett Square is a table used in predicting the possible
combination of alleles of an offspring. For example, in a Monohybrid Cross
(a cross between one trait of two parents), we will be able to determine the
genotypic and phenotypic ratios of the F1 generation by first drawing a grid.
Genotype refers to the person’s DNA while phenotype refers to the physical
traits that the DNA codes for.

We put the genotype of one parent across the top and that of the
other parent down the left side. In this instance, we will use letter P to
represent a particular trait like being purple in color. We will the use a big
P to represent a dominant purple trait and a small p to represent a recessive
trait (white). Now, all we have to do is fill-in the boxes by adding the alleles
together. By combining the alleles of the two parents, we will be able to
predict all the possible combination of alleles that an offspring could inherit
during reproduction.
Pollen
P p
Pistil P PP Pp
p Pp pp

In this example, an offspring has a 25% of the offspring will likely

be homozygous or pure alleles for the dominant purple color as indicated
by the two big “P”.
We can also tell that an offspring has a 25% of the offspring will
likely be homozygous or pure alleles for the recessive white color as
indicated by two small “p” in one box.
Likewise, we can predict that 50% of the offspring will likelybe
heterozygous or mixed alleles. This can be seen as combination of a big “P”
and small “p”.
 Now, what if we want to study two traits instead of one? Then we
will use another kind of Punnett square called “dihybrid cross”.
For example, a cross between two traits of two parents
Yellow pea plant with round seeds and green pea plant with wrinkled seeds
For this Punnett square, the letter R represents roundness while the letter Y
represents the yellow color of the seeds. A big R stands for round and a big
Y stands for yellow. The small letters are theirrecessive counterparts.
Again, we will fill the boxes by combining the alleles at the top of the square
with those on the side.

In this example, the probability of a second generation seed being

round and yellow is 9/17 or 56.25%.
The probability of it being round and green is 3/16 or 18.75%.
The probability of it being wrinkled and yellow is also 3/16 or 18.75%.
The probability of a second generation seed being wrinkled and green is
1/16 or 6.25%.

Parents (F1): RrYy x RrYy

RY Ry rY ry
RY RRYY RRYy RrYY RrYy
Ry RRyY RRyy RryY Rryy
rY rRYY rRYy rrYY rrYy
ry rRyY rRyy rryY rryy

9/16 yellow-round
3/16 yellow-wrinkled
3/16 green-round
1/16 green-wrinkled

2. Analysis
Now that we are familiar with predicting genotype and phenotypes,
let us try to do some cross pollination and determine their genotypes and
phenotypes.

3. Abstraction
So we now know that heredity really plays an important role in our
life but the environment also influences our abilities and traits. Just like your
interest in arts and sports.
Studying genetics gives you a better understanding of our
differences. It explains why your brother and father have a special bond
over sports while you and your mother have a passion for cooking. It also
explains why your sister does not share your interest in studying Math but
prefers Science instead.
Now, can someone tell me what are the three laws of inheritance
again?
 Can you define in your own word what dominance, recessive,
heterozygous, homozygous, genotype and phenotype are?

Very good.

4. Application
1. You see a person on the street with dark, curly hair. Are you seeing
genotype or phenotype?
2. If I have the alleles for two different traits, but one is showing, then the
trait that is showing must be what?
3. Fill-in the table and answer the questions that follow.
A
b b
B
b
No. of heterozygous:___________
No. of homozygous: ___________

B: AaBbGg X aaBBGG

No. of heterozygous:___________
No. of homozygous: ___________

5. Assignment
Research on sex linkage and recombination and write your research on a
sheet of yellow paper.