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Just one Father Christmas?

Type: Activity
Learning Strategy: Information retrieval
Topic: Inheritance of characteristics

Christmas is coming (in case you'd forgotten)! UPD8's seasonal offering this year asks about Father Christmas's ancestors: are all British Mr Christmases descended from one 'Father' Christmas? After finding out how researchers plan to use DNA fingerprinting to discover the answer to this question, students play 'Call My Bluff' or sort true/false cards to reinforce their understanding of inheritance.

11 – 14 Inheritance and selection

Published: 30th November 2005
Reviews & Comments: 9

Learning objectives

Students will:
� Learn how DNA fingerprinting of Y chromosomes is used to trace male ancestry
� Reinforce their understanding of inheritance

Try the activity

father christmas teachers notes
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father christmas activity
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Curriculum link

9a Inheritance and selection
� Cells have nuclei which contain information that is transferred from one generation to the next
� During fertilisation genetic information from male and female parents is combined
� Some characteristics are inherited
� Offspring are similar, but not identical to, their parents
� That the fusion of male and female sex cells produces a new individual that is genetically unique

Running the activity

Show page 1 (either projected or as an OHT), which sets the scene and poses two questions. Run a quick discussion to get students thinking about the answers to the questions. You might like to point out that there are clusters of people with the surname 'Christmas' in Sussex and Essex.

Display page 2, or give each small group a photocopy of this page. Run through the technique of DNA fingerprinting that is described on this page. You might like to point out some of the problems of the research – for example, if a 'baby Christmas' were conceived as a result of a 'Mrs Christmas' having an affair, the baby would have a different Y chromosome from that expected.

There is then a choice of activities:

� Choice 1: Give each group a set of cards created from page 3. Ask students to sort the cards into 'true', 'false' and 'not sure'. The true statements are: A, C, E, H, I, J, K

� Choice 2: Organise students to play 'call my bluff'.
o Ask each group to write one correct and three incorrect definitions (distracters) of one of more of these words: nucleus, chromosome, DNA, DNA fingerprint, cell, Y chromosome, gene, cytoplasm, chromatography, enzymes. Tell groups to make the distracters as convincing as possible.
o Ask each group in turn to read their word and the four definitions. The others in the class hold up a 'true' or 'false' card after each definition. The team scores points for those wrong answers (distracters) chosen. For example,
A chosen by 2 B chosen by 10 C chosen by 0
D (correct!) chosen by 16
The team here would score 2+10+0 = 12 points for bluffing 12 people

Web links

News links

BBC news: This website gives more information about the Father Christmas story.
BBC: This article explains how genealogists are turning to DNA to trace their ancestry.
BBC: This article is about a project spanning five continents that is aiming to map the history of human migration via DNA.

Reviews & Comments

Write your online review to share your feedback and classroom tips with other teachers. How well does it work, how engaging is it, how did you use it, and how could it be improved?

Just one Father Christmas? review

Jan 28th, 2009

A great end of term activity. Requires quite extensive understanding.

Reviewer: emma henry

Santa

May 7th, 2008

This isn't a very convincing arguement
Santa is real, I've seen him.

Reviewer: Eddie Eddie

inheritance and selection

Jan 16th, 2008

Really enjoyable christmas week activity

Reviewer: Hynes Britta

father christmas

Nov 28th, 2006

very interseting as it coincided with chrismass time .it was well used for a mixed ability group who were able to undestand genes and dna.

Reviewer: MARION WILLIAMS

just one fatherchristmas

Jan 24th, 2006

great Christmas activity! I actually used it with year 7, and it led on to us drawing up our own family trees and researching our own name histories - very enlightening! it's amazing how many famous people kids can find that share their surname.

Reviewer: lesley long

bushtucker challenge

Dec 9th, 2005

It was great fun,my top set year 8 enjoyed it and were engaged in planning a meal which is balanced using insects as the main course!!!!!!!! thank you it was terrific

Reviewer: huda bidiwala

homo floriensis

Dec 8th, 2005

This was a fine activity. We used it in school as a Year 6 to 7 orientation activity just recently (school in the northern metropolitan region of Melbourne, Australia) integrating ideas from SOSE (studies of society and environment) and Science. It held their concentration for an easy 40 minutes, and discussion led to human evolution. New ideas were introduced such as the current human species being known as homo sapiens (you get a few giggles) and previous species known as homo erectus ( significant laughter). As Science Coordinator, I will be looking to access this site with my students more frequently.

Reviewer: Tony Bell

Acid rain

Dec 3rd, 2005

I found this a useful activity to stimulate discussion with a middle ability year 11 group. The activities are straightforward and clearly explained. It would probably also work well with younger pupils when introducing acid rain.

Reviewer: Claire Seaborne

Acid Rain

Dec 2nd, 2005

This was a great sheet to give to a year 10 class who do not find things easy! They were all engaged in the activity for a good 30 mins & found the sheets useful. The comments from the class were that they could understand the aspects of acid rain & can see where it features in everyday life. Well done a great class activity!

Reviewer: carrie bonham

no for contemporary science

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