Abstract:

Modifications to Mendelian inheritance can be challenging to teach. One of the most confusing concepts for students to understand is the inheritance of multiple alleles. This topic concerning the modifications to the Mendelian proportions is frequently approached abstractly and, on several occasions, without the students being able to reinforce the theory practically. It is for this reason that our work group decided to implement a practice in which the students are the protagonists in the acquisition of their knowledge, and the teacher is the guide, who uses the model of the plumage coloration in ducks involving three alleles for color (brown: DB; yellow: DY, and white: d). Alleles are gene variants expressed in order of dominance in this case. The students formed teams and received the progeny of three different duck nests (plastic models), in which different numbers of offspring with different plumage colors were found. From this material, the students generated hypotheses about the possible genotypes of the duck parents for each nest. Our results showed that with a striking model, students can more easily be interested and focused on understanding and reasoning concepts of considerable complexity to finally appropriate the knowledge corresponding to multiallelic inheritance.

Keywords:

Active learning, multiple alleles, duck plumage color, interactive model, Mendelian proportion modifications.