The Mating Game
An active-learning exercise in which students can enact Mendel’s fundamental laws of genetics to create their own (simulated) populations in which alternative alleles segregate and then assort to yield the canonical 3:1 and 9:3:3:1 phenotypic ratios (or not!)
.jpg)
The Single Locus Version
This introductory rendition of The Mating Game allows students to explore Mendel’s Law of Segregation to understand the means by which underlying allelic genotypes configurations yield alternative phenotypic outcomes.
.jpg)
The Two Locus Version
This advanced rendition of The Mating Game allows students to explore Mendel’s Law of Independent Assortment and perhaps come to recognize that his second Law is merely an extension of his first Law of Genetics as applied to more than a single locus-- until that beautiful hypothesis was slain by the ugly facts of nature (think: linkage).
A (partial) implementation guide, printable (but unplayed) game boards, and a draft problem set for students are all available for free download here.