Is it a Girl or Boy?
If you teach health or life science to middle schoolers, then this is a lesson you may want to do with your students when you are in your teaching the genetics or organism reproduction units. This activity is great for your visual learning kiddos. It uses repetition and pictures to help students see just how it is that the father’s chromosomes determine a child is born a girl or a boy. Everything you need for this lesson can be found here: Is it a Girl or a Boy Chromosome Activity?
If you talk to middle schoolers, you will see that most do not know what chromosomes are, let alone how chromosomes determine whether one becomes a girl or a boy birth. Most do not know the difference between the male and female reproductive cells and how the come together to form a single cell called a zygote, that will divide to become an embryo, then a fetus, and then a baby. How that baby became a girl or boy, they are not sure. Most just know it has something to do with genes, and that we get our genes from our mom and dad. Most don’t even know what a gene or chromosome even is-it's just a word they have heard before. While this lesson won't go into the topic of what a gene is, it will be a great introductory lesson for knowing just how it is they we were either dressed in pink or blue as a newborn baby.
It is in seventh grade when students are usually introduced to this topic. This particular chromosomes-in-a-bag activity is a favorite teaching tool of mine for learning about the male and reproductive cells and their chromosomes. And you probably already know that I love to incorporate cooperative learning type of activities in my classes. This lesson helps students see how the sex of a child is inherited using labeled X and Y cards that come in my Is it a Girl or Boy activity download.
To begin, have students partner up with another student. Each pair of students will receive two brown sac bags each (do not use see through bags). One bag will be labeled Dad’s Chromosome and the other bag will be labeled Mom's Chromosome. The bag labeled Dad's Chromosomes will contain one X and one Y card, and the bag labeled Mom's Chromosomes will contain two X cards.
My Is it a Girl or Boy Activity download contains a worksheet for students to write down their results and an instructions page on how to do this with your class. Go ahead and try this the next time you are teaching the unit covering this topic. I think you will find it a successful learning tool to use again and again in your classes. Just laminate the chromosome cards and save them in plastic bags to use for years to come! Teach with a Buzz! 😊
*Before starting this activity, you will want to teach students that the reproductive cell in females is the egg, while the reproductive cell in males is the sperm. Eggs only have an X chromosome only, while sperm cells can have an X or Y chromosome. A great teaching tool on this is topic is my Types of Reproduction presentation. This slide presentation download comes with review questions (at the end of the slides) and a student notes worksheet. There is also a quiz that pairs nicely with this presentation.
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