Students were given the opportunity to interact with and observe embryos of zebrafish. Their challenge was to predict the coloration of the offspring of a Wildtype (dark-striped) and Nacre (white) individual and determine the genotype of the dominant wild type father based on the offspring using Punnett Squares. This served as an excellent introduction to our genetics unit and gave students an experience to remember and reference as we continued talking about genotype, phenotype, alleles, traits, Punnett squares, mutations, etc. throughout the unit.
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Take a look into the BIOEYES student journal!
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This hands-on learning experience supported my hypothesis about applied learning experiences. The zebrafish experiment motivated students to make observations using drawings and writing in their journals and also probed them to ask questions and explore various genetic phenomena. I was pleased to see that most students made detailed observations in their journals and nearly all students were actively engaged with the embryos throughout the class period. As Dewey (1938) would say, this project served as a "growing, expanding experience" (p. 89) It also strengthened students' skills of observation and prediction making, built on students' microscope skills, and allowed students to have firsthand interactions with genetic properties.
This experiment served as a teacher-led inquiry that could easily be used as a tool to generate ideas for student-led inquiry to explore other topics in genetics, such as mutations, mutagens, or nature versus nurture. In the future, I would like to use this teacher-led inquiry to scaffold for further student-led inquiry in order to foster more student agency, utilize higher-level thinking skills, encourage more collaboration among students, and strengthen students' science practice abilities (Llewellyn, 2005).
This experiment served as a teacher-led inquiry that could easily be used as a tool to generate ideas for student-led inquiry to explore other topics in genetics, such as mutations, mutagens, or nature versus nurture. In the future, I would like to use this teacher-led inquiry to scaffold for further student-led inquiry in order to foster more student agency, utilize higher-level thinking skills, encourage more collaboration among students, and strengthen students' science practice abilities (Llewellyn, 2005).
Seen above is a collection of student work from the Zebrafish lessons, including photos and drawings & notes from student journals.
