The Radix Endeavor - Genetics

Connecting Questions:

What was your strategy for breeding the lumabells?
Discuss how organisms can have genes that follow many different inheritance patterns
Look at additional examples and/or have students discuss offspring ratios
This is a good place for a discussion on artificial selection as many of the quests in the genetics lines are exactly that.

Additional Resources:

These resources can give additional practice with complex inheritance patterns:

http://www.ck12.org/resource/activity/ProbabilityInheritancePunnettsqDiffInst.docx?eid=SCI.BIO.315&rtitle=Probability+and+Inheritance&ref=%2Fconcept%2FProbability-and-Inheritance%2F

GN1.7: A Splotchy Situation

slindgren — Sat, 18 Jan 2014 01:05:41 +0000

Quest Line:

Previous Quest:

GN1.6: Mold in the Mines

Next Quest:

GN1.8: A Blink in Time

Summary:

Prunessa is trying to understand the inheritance pattern of colors in brightwits. Help her by breeding splotchy brightwits and answering her questions.

Recommendations:

This quest introduces codominance as an inheritance pattern. It has the players discover the pattern before actually discussing it and giving it a name. It is a good quest to do before the discussion of codominance.

Learning Objectives:

Players will codominant traits
Players will be able breed for a specific trait using the codominant inheritance pattern

Tools:

Connecting Questions:

What was different about this cross as compared to the previous two?
In the game, the genotypes are denoted with capital letters – discuss how dominant and codominant traits are denoted differently
Have students try to come up with, or discuss different examples of codominance
What happens if you breed together two organisms that both display codominant traits? Discuss offspring rations from codominant crosses.

Additional Resources:

These resources can give additional practice with complex inheritance patterns:

http://www.ck12.org/resource/video/Complex-Inheritance-Patteerns---Overview?eid=SCI.BIO.317&rtitle=Non-Mendelian+Inheritance&ref=%2Fconcept%2FNon-Mendelian-Inheritance%2F

GN1.6: Mold in the Mines

slindgren — Sat, 18 Jan 2014 01:04:01 +0000

Quest Line:

GN1.7: A Splotchy Situation

Previous Quest:

GN1.5: Bake me a cake

Next Quest:

Summary:

Parslicus needs help breeding milkflies in order to detect a toxic mold that is causing problems in the mine. Breed and bring him two milkflies that have a pointed proboscis and tastebuds on their feet. Additionally bring him a Punnett Square so that he can see how to breed more. *This is a dihybrid cross.

Recommendations:

This quest deals with dihybrid crosses. The Punnett Squares for these can be confusing so we recommend going over this in class before players attempt it in the game world.

Players may not find the exact genotypes for males and females needed and may have to breed based on probabilities or breed multiple generations.

Learning Objectives:

Players will identify dominant and recessive traits
Players will complete a dihybrid cross to breed for particular traits

Tools:

Connecting Questions:

What was your strategy for breeding the milkflies?
What was most difficult about completin the dihybrid cross
What did you notice about the phenotypes/genotypes of the offspring?
This is a good place to discuss ratios of dihybrid crosses and segregation

Additional Resources:

These resources can give additional practice with dihybrid crosses:

GN1.5: Bake me a cake

slindgren — Sat, 18 Jan 2014 01:02:52 +0000

Quest Line:

GN1.4.4: Dominate and Recede

Previous Quest:

Next Quest:

GN1.6: Mold in the Mines

Summary:

Breed two non toxic glumbugs for Aubergene to use in baking his cakes. Bring him the bugs and a Punnett Square showing him how to breed non-toxic bugs.

Recommendations:

After players have completed the quests in 4.x, they are asked to use their knowledge of breeding and inheritance patterns to help characters in the world solve problems. Quests 5, 6 and 7 all deal with breeding using specific inheritance patterns and can be used either before or after learning those patterns.

Players may not find the exact genotypes for males and females needed and may have to breed based on probabilities or breed multiple generations.

Learning Objectives:

Players will understand simple dominant inheritance patterns
Players will identify a dominant trait

Tools:

Connecting Questions:

What was your strategy for breeding the bugs for Aubergene?
If Aubergene wanted toxic bugs, would your strategy have changed?
How did you determine which trait was dominant? What tools did you use?

Additional Resources:

These resources can give additional practice with the beginnings of Mendelian Genetics:

GN1.4.4: Dominate and Recede

slindgren — Sat, 18 Jan 2014 01:01:32 +0000

Quest Line:

Previous Quest:

GN1.4.3: Zybo-tastic

Next Quest:

GN1.5: Bake me a cake

Summary:

Get two heterozygous zyborisers for Wilder so that he can show the farmers how non puffy zyborisers could come from puffy zyborisers and end the feud.

Recommendations:

Players will need to use their knowledge of genotypes, phenotypes and inheritance patterns in order to breed the proper zyborisers.

Learning Objectives:

Players will understand dominant and recessive traits

Tools:

Connecting Questions:

How would you explain to the farmers what happened?
What would you recommend to Wendell if he wants to make sure that he only grows puffy zyborisers on his land?
Discuss pure breeding and how to make sure you get the desired traits

Additional Resources:

These resources can give additional practice with the beginnings of Mendelian Genetics:

GN1.4.3: Zybo-tastic

slindgren — Sat, 18 Jan 2014 01:00:12 +0000

Quest Line:

GN1.4.2: Farmers Have Lots to Say

Previous Quest:

Next Quest:

GN1.4.4: Dominate and Recede

Summary:

After experimenting with the various seeds and offspring from both farmers’ plants, return to Wilder to try to explain to him what is going on.

Recommendations:

This particular quest asks players to translate the experiments from the previous quest into Mendelian inheritance patterns and classic genetics terms. It is important to make sure that players can make the transfer from what they play in the game to the formal genetics content.

Learning Objectives:

Players will understand dominant and recessive traits
Player will be able to explain how the basics of Mendelian genetics

Connecting Questions:

Review vocabulary and dominant/recessive inheritance patterns
Have students discuss the experiments that they tried while trying to figure out the problem of the farmer’s crops. This can be related to the early experiments that Mendel did with pea plants.

Additional Resources:

These resources can give additional practice with the beginnings of Mendelian Genetics:

GN1.4.2: Farmers Have Lots to Say

slindgren — Sat, 18 Jan 2014 00:58:57 +0000

Quest Line:

Previous Quest:

GN1.4.1: Farmer Follies

Next Quest:

GN1.4.3: Zybo-tastic

Summary:

Meet farmers Wendell and Danwell in Whisperwick. Work with Wilder to learn about zyborisers genotypes to help solve the farmers' problems.

Recommendations:

The quests that are part of the 4.x line deal with discovering dominant and recessive traits and how they influence inheritance patterns. This particular quest asks players to figure out if and how you can get a recessive phenotype from breeding two organisms that display a dominant phenotype. This quest is a good way of discovering the patterns without being explicitly told what they are.

Learning Objectives:

Players will understand dominant and recessive traits
Player will be able to use a Punnett Square to predict offspring from a particular set of parents

Tools:

Connecting Questions:

How was it possible for one farmer to grow both types of plants?
Would Danwell, the farmer growing the non puffy zybos ever be able to grow puffy zybos from his plant?
What different combinations of plants did you try breeding and what were the various outcomes?
Would it be possible to selectively breed for one particular type or another?
Discuss examples that students might relate to (2 brown eyed parents have a child with blue eyes).

Additional Resources:

These resources can give additional practice with the beginnings of Mendelian Genetics:

GN1.4.1: Farmer Follies

slindgren — Sat, 18 Jan 2014 00:57:38 +0000

Quest Line:

GN1.4.2: Farmers Have Lots to Say

Previous Quest:

GN1.3.2: Flower Power

Next Quest:

Summary:

While Prunessa works on the Prickle Cure, she sends you out to help other Curiosi members. Go visit Wilder who is working on food production. He tells you that there are two farmers who are fighting and have stopped crop production. Wilder sends you off to try to end the fight between the farmers.

Recommendations:

The quests that are part of the 4.x line deal with discovering dominant and recessive traits and how they influence inheritance patterns. They are a good introduction and can be done before a basic Mendelian genetics unit.

Learning Objectives:

None.

Connecting Questions:

None.

Additional Resources:

None.

GN1.3.2: Flower Power

slindgren — Sat, 18 Jan 2014 00:56:41 +0000

Quest Line:

Previous Quest:

GN1.3.1: Myzle Mania

Next Quest:

GN1.4.1: Farmer Follies

Summary:

Prunessa needs two red flowers that have been bred by the player. Players will use the trait cross station in order to breed flowers from the ones collected in the previous quest.

* Depending on the genotypes of the red flowers collected by the player, some may find that they have been able to bred yellow flowers as well. However, Prunessa only wants the red flowers.

Recommendations:

This quest introduces players to breeding parents in order to get specific offspring. It can be used at the beginning of a genetics unit or following an introduction to phenotypes.

Learning Objectives:

LIMITED CONTENT – MOSTLY JUST TO GET PLAYER FAMILIAR WITH THE TRAIT CROSS TOOL

Players will see the results of breeding certain parents and the distribution of offspring

Tools: