During this tutorial, students will click their way through animations, review question, and various diagrams to illustrate/animate the basic patterns of inheritance in a unique and easy to follow manner.

Students will begin with an introduction to genetics. They will progress their way through the work of Gregor Mendel, onto the mathematical tools called Punnett squares, and then finish as they play the role of genetic counselor to help two familes that have a history of cystic fibrosis and sickle cell disease.

From the student point of view, this sure beats a 30 minute lecture as it is much more engaging. From the teacher point of view, this beats a 30 minute lecture as it allows the students to be engaged with the process of inheritance. This is not a simple PowerPoint presentation where students are shown bullet point main ideas. This PowerPoint is full of creative animations and probing questions that require a student generated answer in order to proceed.

I use these interactive tutorials as a way to introduce or reinforce the topic in question. I have found these tutorials to be very helpful as they allow the students to work at their own pace, go back to an early topic, or move forward. These tutorials were created with Microsoft Power Point 2003, but they are compatible with the newer 2007 version. Since this is a PowerPoint, you don't have to worry about installing unfamiliar software such as Flash and Macromedia. If you do not have PowerPoint, Microsoft has a program called "PowerPoint viewer" that allows you to view a PowerPoint for free. You can download this program from Microsoft's website.

Once you download the $6 version, feel free to make multiple copies to use with your students. I burned a class set of CDs to use in my classroom. When we go to the computer lab to work on this tutorial, I simply pass out 1 CD to each student and they can then work at their own pace. I recollect the CDs when finished.

This download includes:
1) The interactive PowerPoint tutorial
2) Student worksheet (pdf)
3) Teacher answer key (pdf)


Key words:
Biology
Life science
Tutorial
PowerPoint
Power Point
Multimedia
Interactive
Presentation
Technology based
Activity
Computer lab
Genetics
Heredity
Mendel
Punnett
Inheritance
Genetic counseling
Gene
Alleles