Project-Based Inquiry Science-Genetics

Big Question: How can knowledge of genetics help feed the world? Students provide advice about developing a rice plant that is nutritious and can be grown in places that do not get a lot of rain. After being introduced to the worldwide problem of food shortage, students investigate how to develop varieties of rice that could help to alleviate the shortage. Within this context, students learn sexual and asexual reproduction, Mendelian inheritance, Punnett squares, meiosis and mitosis, chromosomes and DNA, how traits and the environment interact, evolution and natural selection, variation, natural and artificial selection, and the promises and potential threats of genetic engineering.