Living Earth · Week 19 · Inheritance and Variation
The Code Inside Us
Explaining how DNA codes for proteins and reflecting on which traits are inherited and which are chosen.
- Students will
- Students explain how the sequence of DNA codes for proteins, which carry out the functions that build structures such as an eye.
- SEL skill
- Separate traits you inherit from choices you make and notice your reaction
- What it looks like
- Students practice self-awareness by recognizing emotions about which traits are inherited and which are chosen.
- Content focus
- From DNA to proteins to traits
- Format
- Partner exchange
Self-awareness
Self-awareness means recognizing your own emotions, thoughts, values, and strengths and seeing how they influence what you do. More self-awareness activities
What you get
A teacher guide with what to say, step by step, plus student pages and a supports page for students with diverse learning needs, including those with IEPs. Print or Project it, or assign it in Google Forms and Google Docs for Google Classroom. Your first 10 activities are free.
Standards
- HS-LS1-1: High School Life Science performance expectation
- Science and engineering practice: SEP6 Constructing explanations and designing solutions
- Crosscutting concept: CCC6 Structure and function
- Literacy in science: RST.9-10.2 Determine the central ideas or conclusions of a text and summarize them accurately.
- Traditional course: Biology
Fits these textbook chapters
Textbook names are used only to help you find activities that fit what you teach. RoseThread Connect is not affiliated with these publishers.
More self-awareness activities for Living Earth
- Who Gets to Be a Scientist? Self-awarenessStudents map the questions they already ask about the desert around them and name the scientist identity they bring into Living Earth.
- Sunlight Into Sugar Self-awarenessModeling photosynthesis as an energy transformation and naming what refuels students' own energy.
- Clues in Shared Ancestry Self-awarenessComparing anatomical and DNA evidence for common ancestry and reflecting on the family and community roots students share.
- Semester Reflection: My Growth as a Scientist Self-awarenessStudents explain how the factors of evolution changed a real population, contrast that with how they grew as learners this semester, and set goals for the spring.
Previous: Semester Reflection: My Growth as a Scientist · Next: Traits and Family Stories
RoseThread Connect activities are drafted with the help of AI and shaped by educators. Students never have to share anything personal. Our five SEL skills are informed by CASEL's SEL Framework; RoseThread Learning is not affiliated with or endorsed by CASEL.