Mutt Mixer

Students play with dog traits and see how two parents can make greatly varied offspring. Built-in achievements reveal even more about inheritance.

Have students explore individually or in pairs

• “Students had a worksheet to fill out as they worked (describing 5 achievements and what they did to get them and then answering analysis questions built around the activity objectives).”
• “I added if they submitted a picture of all the achievements done they could get extra credit.”
• “I added that one of their jobs during the explore was to get at least 6 achievements. I could hear them saying, ‘I figured it out,’ so that motivated others.”

• During sexual reproduction, allele shuffling generates offspring with nearly endless trait variations.
• Offspring that arise from sexual reproduction have genetic information from two parents; half of the offspring's genetic information comes from each parent.
• Individuals with two parents have two of every gene; the genes in a pair may be the same or different.
• Individuals with two parents inherit two alleles for every gene (one from each parent), but there can be many different alleles within a population.

“Each Mendelian locus has only two alleles, one dominant and one recessive.” It’s true that an individual has two alleles for every gene. But too often, students incorrectly extend this idea to the population level. In reality, a gene can have dozens of alleles—and most don’t show clear dominant or recessive inheritance patterns at all.

Student devices with internet access, headphones

Mutt Mixer
Mutt Mixer Traits Explained
Mutt Mixer Quick Reference (pdf)

• How do different gene versions (alleles) come about in the first place? (through mutation)