Bundling of instructional experiences is a common theme in my science classes. In the Next Generation Science Standards, lessons simultaneously embed disciplinary core ideas, cross cutting concepts and science & engineering practices.

In this lesson, adapted from tinkercad user mfritz, students get a dragon egg containing the Alleles from each of two dragon parents. They the apply principles of heredity to determine the genotypes and phenotypes of their dragon baby, and then design their dragon baby in Tinkercad.

Some years I print all their dragons. Other years, I have the students share their dragons on a shared document and write a story about why their dragon should be printed as our class mascot. The stories are always very entertaining to read!

In a later iteration of the lesson, students are challenged to design their own dragon and determine the required parental genotypes to result in a series of desired phenotypes.

Dragon Genetics Lab: Click here to make your own copy.

Dragon Selective Breeding: Click here to make your own copy.