Evaluations for Face Activity
Birth Announcement. Each of the "married" couple is asked to write a clever birth announcement enriched with genotypic and phenotypic adjectives and artwork. This causes the students to imagine what the offspring will look like and to realize that the chromosomal/gene gymnastics that take place during meiosis and the ultimate unification of genes during fertilization makes babies of incredible beauty, complexity and variety. You are causing the student to realize that the genotypes on the chromosomes produce phenotypic (protein- based) structures.
The child grows up! After the married couple has determined what the baby will look like, and has produced a adjective-riddled birth announcement, it is time to raise the baby. For fifteen long years they change the diapers, feed, love and care for the child. They nurture their offspring in every way possible. Finally the product ......a fifteen (what ever age your students are) year old, going to high school, learning neat things, hooking up brain cells, meeting new people, having new experiences, loved and loving human is produced. What does their offspring, the child that they are so proud of look like? Each parent will draw the child. They work separately at home and do not collaborate. Your students have various art backgrounds, it might be wise to have them look at a few photos of people's faces and measure where things are! The name of the child is not placed on the front of the portrait. The next day these portraits are brought in and taped up to the wall randomly. It is the teachers job to see if the two portraits can be matched. They are surprisingly easy to match! Questions?
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