Veggie Babies is a fun group activity you can use to model monohybrid cross inheritance. Students can construct offspring for Ma Potato and Pa Onion and then create their offspring to see firsthand the random selection of alleles. This activity amplifies the use of those tricky genetics words and gets students thinking about why some offspring have traits similar to their parents and others do not. This activity is also a great place to practice drawing Punnett Squares, talk about gender determination and determine probabilities for particular phenotypes.
Materials students will need:
- Potatoes
- Onions
- Sultanas
- Celery sticks
- Carrot slices
- Peas
- Parsnip slices
- Toothpicks
Method:
- Students construct Ma Potato (genotype: XX, bb, ll, Cc) and Pa Onion (genotype: XY, Bb, LL, Cc) using information from the table below.
| Characteristic | Phenotype | Genotype |
| Gender
Eyes
Arms
Feet | Potato Onion
Sultanas Peas
Long celery stick Short celery stick
Carrot slices Parsnip slices | XX XY
BB or Bb bb
LL or Ll ll
CC or Cc cc |
- From here, students write the individual alleles possessed by each parent for each trait on small pieces of paper and place them into 4 piles for each parent.
- Students then randomly select one allele from each of the 8 piles to construct their veggie baby.
- Students place the alleles back into the piles and ‘shuffle them’ before making a second veggie baby.
Once students have done 2 offspring, the class as a whole can compare the frequencies of traits between vegetable offspring.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
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Monohybrid Cross Punnett Squares- PDFs
- 8-2 Assignment Student Edition - Monohybrid Cross Punnett Squares (FREE)
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Monohybrid Cross Worksheet - Word Docs & PowerPoints
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