Reebops: Why Siblings Aren't Identical (Introduction to Meiosis)
Lesson Plan · Grade 8 · Science · ngss
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Grade
8
Method
five_e
Phases
Name: Engage
Minutes: 10
Purpose: Hooks students with a puzzling phenomenon: siblings from the same two parents look different, yet mitosis (last unit) makes identical copies. This surfaces their initial ideas about how traits pass from parents to offspring. It also creates the 'need to know' that drives the Reebop model in Explore, where students discover that each parent passes on only one chromosome from each pair. Day 1 of a 4-day 5E arc: this slice covers Engage, Explore and Explain. Elaborate (applying meiosis to real human traits and Punnett-style predictions) follows on Day 2–3, and Evaluate follows on Day 4.
Materials
Exit Ticket Suggestion
Q1. Why did each parent give only ONE card from each chromosome pair?
Q2. Two Reebop babies had the exact same parents but looked different. Use evidence from today to explain why.
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