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Deep Roots

Each table is a seed company. Students cross corn plants, read test plots, and promise the farms only what a Punnett square can prove while the valley dries up.

Life Science / Biology Grades 7-10 7 roles 45 min 1 class period

A valley that is drying up: 24 farms and a few seed companies, over four growing seasons.

Seed companies breed corn with deep roots for a valley that is drying up, promise the farms what their seed will grow, and set a price, while a Punnett square decides whose promise comes true.

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Class Time

45 minutes

Designed For

1 class period

Roles

7 roles

Class Sizes

12-19 kids: 4 companies, 20-24 kids: 5 companies, 25-29 kids: 6 companies, 30-35 kids: 7 companies

Learning Objectives

4 objectives

Standards

4 standards aligned

Where This Fits in Your Curriculum

Use this after students have filled in one Punnett square by hand and know dominant and recessive. Students do not need to know meiosis, mutations or asexual reproduction, and the game does not teach them. It practices predicting offspring, reading a test plot as evidence, and selective breeding, all under real stakes: a promise the Punnett square cannot back costs double. Middle school life science runs the one-gene version (deep roots). High school biology runs the two-gene version, where root companies and pest companies must swap pollen to breed seed that survives a drought with pests, and the two-gene cross and the test cross come up in play. Small test plots show how chance can fool a careful class.

What Students Will Learn

Use a Punnett square to predict how many offspring of a cross show a trait.
Read the offspring of a cross as evidence about the parents' hidden copies (carriers, test crosses).
Explain why a recessive trait can skip a generation and reappear from two carriers.
Explain selective breeding as one way people shape inherited traits, and how it differs from adding a gene.

Cases Included

NGSS MS-LS3-2 (in part) - develop and use a model (Punnett squares) to describe why sexual reproduction results in offspring with genetic variation
NGSS MS-LS4-5 (in part, with the extension reading) - how technologies such as selective breeding have changed the way humans influence the inheritance of desired traits
NGSS HS-LS3-2 (in part, high school version) - new genetic combinations from two independently inherited genes
NGSS HS-LS3-3 (in part, high school version) - apply probability to explain the variation and distribution of expressed traits

Social & Emotional Learning (CASEL)

Aligned to the CASEL framework's core competencies. These are the SEL skills students actively practice while playing.

Responsible Decision-Making Each season a table promises only what its evidence can prove, and decides whether to price seed so the poorest farms can buy it.
Relationship Skills Jobs rotate every season, and in the high school version companies agree pollen swaps face to face.

Flexible Class Sizes

12-19 kids: 4 companies

Oak, Cedar, Maple and Birch. 12-15 kids: tables of 3 or 4. 16-19 kids: tables of 4 or 5.

20-24 kids: 5 companies

Adds Willow. Tables of 4 or 5.

25-29 kids: 6 companies

Adds Pine. Tables of 4 or 5.

30-35 kids: 7 companies

Adds Elm. Tables of 4 or 5.

How the Game Plays Out

Roles Your Students Will Play

Click any role to see their background and what they are trying to accomplish.

Oak Seed Company

Oak Seed Company breeds corn and sells its seed to the farms in the valley. Every plant has two copies of each gene, one from each parent. A dominant trait shows with one copy; a recessive trait shows only with two. Deep roots are recessive, so a carrier can hide the trait. Choosing which plants to cross is selective breeding. High school: pest resistance is dominant, so one big P makes a plant pest-resistant.

Goals

Promise only what your Punnett square can prove.
Breed seed with deep roots before the drought.
End with the most coins, and keep as many farms farming as you can.

Cedar Seed Company

Cedar Seed Company breeds corn and sells its seed to the farms in the valley. Every plant has two copies of each gene, one from each parent. A dominant trait shows with one copy; a recessive trait shows only with two. Deep roots are recessive, so a carrier can hide the trait. Choosing which plants to cross is selective breeding. High school: pest resistance is dominant, so one big P makes a plant pest-resistant.

Goals

Promise only what your Punnett square can prove.
Breed seed with deep roots before the drought.
End with the most coins, and keep as many farms farming as you can.

Maple Seed Company

Maple Seed Company breeds corn and sells its seed to the farms in the valley. Every plant has two copies of each gene, one from each parent. A dominant trait shows with one copy; a recessive trait shows only with two. Deep roots are recessive, so a carrier can hide the trait. Choosing which plants to cross is selective breeding. High school: pest resistance is dominant, so one big P makes a plant pest-resistant.

Goals

Promise only what your Punnett square can prove.
Breed seed with deep roots before the drought.
End with the most coins, and keep as many farms farming as you can.

Birch Seed Company

Birch Seed Company breeds corn and sells its seed to the farms in the valley. Every plant has two copies of each gene, one from each parent. A dominant trait shows with one copy; a recessive trait shows only with two. Deep roots are recessive, so a carrier can hide the trait. Choosing which plants to cross is selective breeding. High school: pest resistance is dominant, so one big P makes a plant pest-resistant.

Goals

Promise only what your Punnett square can prove.
Breed seed with deep roots before the drought.
End with the most coins, and keep as many farms farming as you can.

Willow Seed Company

Willow Seed Company breeds corn and sells its seed to the farms in the valley. Every plant has two copies of each gene, one from each parent. A dominant trait shows with one copy; a recessive trait shows only with two. Deep roots are recessive, so a carrier can hide the trait. Choosing which plants to cross is selective breeding. High school: pest resistance is dominant, so one big P makes a plant pest-resistant.

Goals

Promise only what your Punnett square can prove.
Breed seed with deep roots before the drought.
End with the most coins, and keep as many farms farming as you can.

Pine Seed Company

Pine Seed Company breeds corn and sells its seed to the farms in the valley. Every plant has two copies of each gene, one from each parent. A dominant trait shows with one copy; a recessive trait shows only with two. Deep roots are recessive, so a carrier can hide the trait. Choosing which plants to cross is selective breeding. High school: pest resistance is dominant, so one big P makes a plant pest-resistant.

Goals

Promise only what your Punnett square can prove.
Breed seed with deep roots before the drought.
End with the most coins, and keep as many farms farming as you can.

Elm Seed Company

Elm Seed Company breeds corn and sells its seed to the farms in the valley. Every plant has two copies of each gene, one from each parent. A dominant trait shows with one copy; a recessive trait shows only with two. Deep roots are recessive, so a carrier can hide the trait. Choosing which plants to cross is selective breeding. High school: pest resistance is dominant, so one big P makes a plant pest-resistant.

Goals

Promise only what your Punnett square can prove.
Breed seed with deep roots before the drought.
End with the most coins, and keep as many farms farming as you can.

Hand Each Student Their Own Sheet

One click on the teacher dashboard prints a dossier for every role - background, goals, key facts, and their confidential briefing - plus the primary-source packet and a vocabulary sheet. Print them, or save as PDF, so each student reads their role on paper instead of huddling around one screen. The app still runs the votes and the action; the paper just carries the reading.

Primary Sources

Every role includes real historical documents. Students read them because they need the information to make their case.

Key Terms Students Will Learn

genecopytraitdominantrecessivecarrieroffspringcrossPunnett squaretest plotcropfamily recordpromisepollenpest-resistantdroughtdrought-tolerantselective breeding

After the Game: Debrief Questions

How can two shallow plants make a deep-rooted plant?
Think of a plant that is deep-rooted and pest-resistant. Which copies did each parent give it?
A plant looked pest-resistant, but some of its offspring were not pest-resistant. What copies did it have?
Your plot had 16 plants. Did a count ever fool a table here? How?
What does it take to keep the 1-coin farms farming?
A real company made drought-tolerant corn. It let a project for farmers with small farms use its drought gene for free. Why might a company give that away?
Shallow roots were dominant here. Did dominant mean better?

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