Using labs and activities to teach high school genetics

Nearly all students enjoy learning about the topics of genetics, but few understand them. Misconceptions created by textbooks, the abstract nature of genetics, and poor student motivation can all contribute to poor student achievement. This unit was designed to address specific misconccptions, as well as create hands-on opportunities for students to make genetics an enjoyable and learnable subject. A good background is necessary to proceed to advanced genetics topics, so the focus of this redesigned unit is basic genetics. After using the summer of 2001 to design and create exciting labs and activities, as well as creating colorful and engaging PowerPoint presentations for notes, I have made a genetics unit that allows maximum student understanding as measured by the various assessment tools used in the unit. I began the unit with a pretest to assess students' prior knowledge of the subject. Following the unit I gave a posttest, which scores support the effectiveness of the redesigned unit I have created. Students, after doing the activities, labs, and other exercises of this unit, are much more prepared to proceed to an applied genetics unit because they have a stronger background on the molecular basis of genetics, which is a building block for all other applied genetics topics.