Urban Teaching Apprenticeship Program

Secondary Lesson Planning Template

GOALS

(A) What is the goal(s) of the broader unit, lesson, or activity that you will be pushing into?

SWBAT understand and differentiate simple Mendelian genetics and non-Mendelian

inheritance patterns

(B) What is the goal(s) of the particular lesson or activity that you are planning for this
exercise? What do you want your students to understand, know, and/or be able to do? What
are the enduring understandings that you’d like them to leave with?

SWBAT describe the inheritance pattern of skin color IOT understand polygenic traits

SWBAT reinforce their understanding of polygenic traits from yesterday’s brief introduction

(C) What state standards/school-based standards align with these goals?

BIO.B.2.1.1 Describe and/or predict observed patterns of inheritance (i.e., dominant,

recessive, co-dominance, incomplete dominance, sex-linked, polygenic, and multiple alleles).

(D) What types of essential questions could guide this learning?

In our cells, what causes differences in skin color?

Why did we evolve certain colors of skin? What environmental factors do we have to think
about?

How do we get traits that aren’t either/or traits? There are many more than two colors of skin.
How is this possible?

EVIDENCE

How will you know if your students have achieved the goal(s) that you listed in (B)?

We will work through our online activity, including question breaks, together as a class. I will
gauge class understanding during these breaks. Once we have concluded the online activity,
students will answer analysis questions on the activity. I will collect this work and assess
students’ understanding of the material.

LEARNING PLAN

Time Teacher Actions Student Actions Resources

10 mins Provide Do Now questions Respond to Do Now Do Now

Questions

5 mins Provide video clip of family Watch movie https://www.yout

with interesting inheritance ube.com/watch?
pattern v=MzOEXiUtHu
Q

10 mins Provide students with article Read the article and https://www.dail
about the family evaluate claims ymail.co.uk/new
s/article-
4168946/Mum-
world-s-black-
woman-two-
white-
babies.html

20 mins Lead class through Follow through slides, How Do Genes

PowerPoint slides and respond to question Determine Skin
questions prompts Color:
https://biol.co/ge
nskin

15 mins Distribute analysis questions Work in small groups on Companion

analysis questions, finish question packet
for homework

DIFFERENTIATION CONSIDERATIONS

What knowledge of students informs your lesson design?

I chose to approach the topic of polygenic inheritance through the lens of skin color
specifically because my students have expressed interest in the genetics of skin color. We
began our inquiry into this topic yesterday with some short videos investigating the differences
in skin color and how these differences arose as environmental adaptations. Today we will
dive into more of the genetics.

How will you differentiate instruction (materials, inputs, outputs, modalities, etc.)?

We began yesterday with some videos, and we will continue today with an interactive slide
presentation that we conduct as a whole class before diving into small group work on some
analysis questions.

REFLECTION

How did the lesson go? What changes would you make if you were to teach it again?