OpenSciEd 8.5, Lesson 8: Using Pedigrees to Make Predictions
Task
This Tuva Investigation covers the pedigree-data and coin-flip portions of Lesson 8 (Parts 6–7 and 9–11), giving students dynamic proportion, filter, and summary tools instead of hand-tallying on paper. This is not a standalone lesson. Use it in tandem with the OpenSciEd Teacher Edition to guide overall instruction and collaborative sensemaking. Where This Investigation Fits into the Storyline Students just found that cattle siblings don't always look alike even with the same parents — here they mine pedigree and coin-flip data for the patterns that explain why, then build a way to predict those patterns. How to Sequence This Investigation Day 1 Parts 1–5 (Slides A–P): stay offline — card sorting, pedigree-building, and the homozygous/heterozygous discussion. Part 6 (Slides Q–S) → Tuva Steps 1–2: students use :ti[percent] and :ti[stats]/:ti[ti-summary-view] to find offspring proportions for Crosses A–F. Part 7 (Slides T–U) → Tuva Step 3: students discuss the patterns they found and where the alleles came from. Day 2 Part 8 (Slides V–Z): stays offline (no materials); Tuva Step 4 (no questions) just carries the discussion prompt forward. Part 9 (Slide AA) → Tuva Step 5: students still physically flip chips, but log results straight into Tuva instead of a class chart, then use :ti[ti-summary-view] to see the tallies. Parts 10–11 (Slides AB–AU) → Tuva Step 6: students predict probabilities for two crosses, then use :ti[filter-by] to check their predictions against the real class data — this also covers Part 11's exit-ticket question. Parts 12–13 (Slides AV–BA): stay offline — the mutation-origin story and closing DQB revisit; Tuva Step 7 (no questions) just wraps with the bridge to Lesson 9.**
In the last lesson, you updated your model to include what you learned about genes, alleles, and the myostatin protein. You predicted that a sibling's phenotype would be the same as the parents. But you saw examples of cattle siblings with different phenotypes. In this investigation, you will look for patterns in pedigrees to figure out: How come siblings don't look the same if they have the same genetic information as their parents? What happens that makes offspring not always look like their parents? Click Next to get started.
Topics and standards: Life Science, MS-LS1-5, MS-LS1-2, MS-LS1-4, MS-LS3-1, MS-LS3-2, OpenSciEd, MS-LS4-5, 3.1.6-8.B, 3.1.6-8.D, 3.1.6-8.E, 3.1.6-8.M, 3.1.6-8.N, 3.1.6-8.R