Abstract

Undergraduate genetics courses often have a strong molecular and mathematical focus without an applied framework illustrating downstream impacts of genetic decisions, especially within a plant breeding perspective. Subsequently, content tends to focus on finding the probability of genes being inherited by offspring from parents, connecting genotype to phenotype, or determining if genes are linked. We commonly received student feedback requesting concepts to be more applied, so the students can see how these concepts could be applied to their future careers. The aim of this activity is to introduce students to genetics through game-based learning and connect the concepts to real-world applications, specifically, economic outcomes. Students assume the role of plant breeders and farmers and in groups, see who can generate the most money while dealing with the unpredictability of the environment and market pressures. During the activity, students work on creating plant progeny with different traits from parents with a goal to create varieties that will sell to different markets. They will test the progeny across several field-trials over three seasons. We conducted this game in three plant science undergraduate courses at Cornell, over two years. Student engagement and learning was evaluated via student assessments and informal student surveys. In both cases, the students stated that they found the activity engaging and educational and helped them think about the multiple aspects plant breeding programs must consider to be successful.

Primary Image: Potato breeders harvesting progeny with desirable traits for market. Researchers gather potatoes with certain desirable traits, of which the most immediately observable is red flesh. These traits were selected for a downstream purpose, to make the product more desirable for sale at a specific market. This role-playing activity helps students navigate this decision-making process.

Citation

Society Learning Goals

Plant Biology

• Plant Genetics and Variation
• How are characteristics of one generation related to the previous generation?
• Plants and Society
• What is biodiversity, how do humans affect it, and how does it affect humans?

Lesson Learning Goals

• Students should be able to tap into the interdisciplinary nature of science.

Lesson Learning Objectives

• identify the multi-faceted goals of plant breeding programs by determining what influences a plant breeders’ selection of traits.
• compare traits that breeders select for and traits that are important to different stakeholders and provide reasoning for the choices.
• evaluate how plant breeding is influenced by the breeder, consumer, and changes in the environment.
• predict how environmental changes will impact breeding decisions, such as the selection of phenotypic traits or success of different varieties over time.

Introduction

Breeding programs are constantly challenged to derive solutions for problems, like climate change, resource limitations, and nutritional demands of humans (1). Their real-time decisions have lasting downstream implications, both known and unknown, that determine the team’s success. Because of this, plant breeders rely on both their content-specific knowledge and training as well as skills-based competencies like systems-thinking, collaboration and decisive decision making. We believe that part of an undergraduate education is preparing students for success in their future careers, by intentionally designing activities that provide them with field-specific content alongside interpersonal skill development.

The goal of this activity is to engage students in science practices (e.g., systems-thinking, informed decision making, and testing different theoretical hypothesis, constructing arguments) to connect and work with core concepts of genetics, such as inheritance patterns and genetic diversity in the context of plant breeding. Students will interact with and evaluate the system-level impacts of the breeding decisions they make, mirroring real-world impacts and challenges of breeding programs. This activity applies the game-based element of competition with a role-playing scenario where students act and make decisions as if they were plant breeders conducting advanced field-trials. While we choose to focus on potatoes as the crop of interest, any plant or animal system can be used for this game.

The Benefits of Game-Based Learning

Game-based learning is characterized by adding game-elements, such as competition and chance, or game play into an activity or lesson. Specifically, it establishes a set of rules by which students are able to engage with content and presents a novel challenge student’s must overcome (2, 3). A recent study suggested that game-based, active learning activities in the classroom enhanced interpersonal skill development such as active listening and group decision making (4). In another study, undergraduate students self-reported being better able to discuss important ideas and work with other students to problem-solve after completing an in-person, game-based activity (5). To incorporate the benefits of game-based learning into this activity, we have included the game elements of competition and chance.

We are not unique in our promotion of game-based learning into lesson development. At least four recent lessons published to CourseSource have included non-technology, game-based elements into their design (6–9). In one publication, the lesson specifically highlighted how competition was incorporated along with some recommendations on how to mitigate student apprehension around this specific element (6). We believe our activity adds to the continuing interest in game-based learning CourseSource community.

Using Role-Playing to Frame Activity Game Play

The activity places students in the position of a plant breeder, as a post-graduate. To do this, we incorporated role-playing, defined in an active-learning context as a tool that is used to foster connections between content and real-world situations by simulating contexts in which that knowledge is used. Benefits of role-playing activities include: longer-term content retention (10) and increased preparation of students for post-graduation positions by teaching them how to apply knowledge to novel scenarios (11). Similar to the added benefits of game-based elements in active learning activities, role-playing teaches interpersonal skills like teamwork, negotiating, collaboration, and listening to other opinions (11).

We use role-playing to frame the activity. Students are asked to position themselves in the role of a plant breeder making decisions every year that impacts their crop success, measured by “selling” their crops to different markets. Ultimately, the breeding team with the largest revenue will “win” the game. We believe that tying the benefits of game-based learning to the benefits of role-playing, discussed above, makes for an impactful student learning experience.

Intended Audience

This lesson is intended for an introductory undergraduate plant biology or plant genetics course. While this activity was developed at a large research university, we believe it can be applied in any university with a general genetics, plant sciences or any related program. For any class size, we recommend breaking students into groups of three to four and using a class Google Doc or similar educational tool, to track team progress.

Required Learning Time

The total time of this lesson is between 90–120 minutes, depending on instructor preference for discussion time. Although we recommend running this activity during a laboratory period (Table 1), it can be modified to span multiple class periods of varying lengths in time (Table 2).

Table 1. Teaching timetable. The recommended lesson outline for this lesson if ran in a 90 to 120-minute lab period. Outlines activity set up, order of events, and additional notes to support instructors running this activity.

Table 2. Recommended lesson modifications based on different class lengths. This activity was originally designed for a 90 to 120-minute lab period. To implement this activity in shorter time periods, or in classes without a lab component, multiple days are recommended for students to fully benefit from the activity.

Prerequisite Student Knowledge

Students should be able to meet the following learning objectives prior to this activity:

1. Describe how genotype is linked to phenotype.

2. Summarize how genes are inherited from one generation to the next.

3. Define terms related to breeding, such as: parental groups, F1 offspring, linkage and others as determined by your instructor.

We encourage instructors looking to evaluate students’ baseline knowledge of genetics concepts prior to this activity to review previously published genetic concept assessments (12). Please note that these resources often leverage human genetic examples and may need modification to reflect plant examples.

Prerequisite Teacher Knowledge

We do not believe that teachers, especially graduate teaching assistants, need a depth of knowledge to be successful in implementing this activity. However, prior knowledge on plant breeding strategies and methods may enhance an instructors’ conversation with the students during this activity. We have designed this activity so that no additional materials need to be purchased.

Scientific Teaching Themes

Active Learning

Active learning practices are used throughout this activity to help students engage in learning and met the learning objectives. These include:

• Game-based role-playing: Students consider themselves as a plant breeder working on a team to develop and evaluate the success of new potato varieties. These teams will compete by making informed breeding decisions and evaluating the down-stream intended and unintended consequences of those decisions. The results of this evaluation will determine a team’s profit for a breeding season. The team that has the most profit at the end of three seasons will “win” the game.

• Inquiry Learning: Students will engage with real world concepts through choice. As a breeding team, they will be asked to decide upon which traits to breed for, which offspring to plant when, and to which market they sell those crops. Each of their actions will contribute to their overall earnings, the determining factor for success in this game-based lesson.

• Small and Large Group Discussions: In a small group discussion at the start of the activity, students discuss the goals of their chosen breeding program. At various points throughout the activity, students will have time to reflect on the implications of their decisions. Large class discussions will be prompted by the instructor at the start and end of the activity.

Assessment

At the end of the activity, we have students evaluate their own learning through a formative reflective assessment (i.e., Slide 42 in Supporting File S1 and corresponding Part F in Supporting File S2). In addition, students completed a summative assessment in an exam format, as outlined in the Post-Class Assessment section below. Additional recommendations of alternative assessments are provided in the Post-Class Assessment section as well.

Inclusive Teaching

In developing this activity, we strived to follow the UDL Guidelines for Course Design (13), providing multiple means of engagement. Students were able to interact with the material in written and oral methods and could choose how much or how little they wanted to speak in their groups. This project fosters collaboration and community building by allowing students to bring together their strengths and work toward a common goal. We provided instructions in both written and auditory format, and this project allows for customization to fit the goals and needs of individual classrooms.

The crop chosen for this activity was intentional: potatoes have large genetic and phenotypic diversity and are grown and eaten worldwide by a diversity of cultures in a range of environments (14). If instructors would like to incorporate a cultural lens to this activity, we encourage them to visit the International Potato Center webpage (15) to learn more about this crop. We also want to note that this activity is not limited to a single crop. The instructor could run this activity with any crop of interest to them or their students, including crops of cultures that are not normally represented in traditional plant science curricula. For example, the activity could have students breed crops such as wild rice, which is an important staple crop for Northern indigenous communities in the United States (16, 17).

Lesson Plan

This game is intended to be played over the course of a laboratory period. Table 1 outlines a lesson plan for this activity as it was originally developed and aligns with the text provided below. As mentioned previously, recommendations on how to modify this lesson to accommodate different course times are in Table 2. Before class, print off at least one copy of the activity worksheet (Supporting File S2) and the genetic parents they will select from to breed new varieties (Supporting File S3). If resources or time do not permit, create a link or QR code for students to easily access and edit these files electronically during class.

At the start of the lesson, break the students up into small groups of three or four and provide them with the handouts listed above. If your class has more than four small groups, (12–16 people), it can be helpful to have a class Google Doc to keep track of team standings. Figure 1 summarizes the game overview described in detail below.

Warm-Up and Introduction to the Activity

The activity starts with a thought question to help prime students to “think like a breeder.” We used a question related to different decisions farms might make based on the market they want to sell to (Slide 3, Supporting File S1). In our experience, many students had not previously thought about this aspect of breeding, so this question positioned them to start building connections between known and new information. This warm-up activity can be modified to fit your unique class goals and can be done in a variety of ways such as a quick write, team discussion, or word cloud. As this question should provide a new perspective or perception of plant breeding, individual team discussions should be shared out in a subsequent brief class discussion (Table 1).

After the warm-up, it is time to introduce the activity. Just like reading the rules of a new board game, these instructions will provide a brief overview of the activity, including the learning goals, along with how groups can “win” the game (Figure 1). We have provided a script an instructor could use to introduce the activity in the speaker notes on Slide 4 of Supporting File S1, along with a subsequent description of the “rules” on Slides 5–8. This step is incredibly important for student comprehension and successful navigation through the remainder of the activity.

Introduction: Setting Up Student Breeding Programs

Students are now ready to jump into the game. The introduction is broken out into Part A and B described below. During this part of the activity, you may have to field questions that reveal student background knowledge. For instance, those with a deeper knowledge base of plant genetics might ask about polyploidy, epistasis, and phenotypic variation. Other students may need to look up additional definitions for unfamiliar words such as linkage, parents or progeny.

Part A: In small groups, have students go through the list of parents and their subsequent traits (Supporting File S3) and determine which two that they will use to create the F1 offspring/progeny groups. For our lesson, we developed six parents, but believe the activity can be successful as long as there are more than three options.

Part B: After picking parents, groups will perform their “initial cross.” Variety development will be illustrated through student development of progeny groups. For ease of gameplay, and simplicity of this simulation, we recommend using the following rule set for this step:

• You can create up to four “progeny groups” or varieties that you will move into advanced breeding trials.

• We accept that Mendelian and non-Mendelian genetics are at play when two plants are crossed in real life, resulting in a variety of phenotypes. For simplicity, you will choose which trait expressed in the parents the progeny inherit (e.g., if Parent 1 has yellow flesh, and Parent 2 has white flesh, you can choose either yellow or white flesh in your offspring group), acknowledging that basic models of genetic, like Mendelian inheritance, and exceptions to these models, are play. We have created Supporting File S4 that instructors can use if they are interested in fostering a more in-depth discussion about potential genetic explanations of this pretend population.

• Yield is linked to pathogen resistance. These traits travel together (e.g., if you choose Parent A because you want one of your offspring groups to be high yielding, that same offspring group also must inherit the susceptibility to pathogens phenotype).

Next, tell students that they will start their advanced field trials with 100 total potatoes in storage. They can define how many potatoes of each progeny group (variety) they start with as long as the total of all stored potatoes from each progeny group totals to 100.

Gameplay: Moving Through Planting, Growing and Market Sales

Part C: Planting season. The F1 offspring groups will serve as your stock of potatoes to plant over the next three seasons; once you plant a potato, you subtract them from storage. For example, if you start with 25 potatoes in offspring group A and plant 10 of them in season one, you have 15 potatoes left in storage to plant in subsequent seasons.

Each season, students will pick 20 individuals to plant. They can divide these up between any of the F1 offspring groups, however, it is recommended that students work in multiples of five for simplicity (e.g., select five individuals from offspring group #1, and 15 from offspring group #3 to plant in the first season). There is a spot to record the number of potatoes planted from each group and the number left in storage on the activity worksheet (Part C, Supporting File S2).

For the first season, students have no prior information on environmental predictions or market trends. This is to highlight what can happen if these are not considered at the start of a planting season (i.e., there can be no problems and your program makes profit, or there could be things you did not consider which dramatically decreases your yield and subsequent profit). For each season after that, students will be provided with “clues” that can help inform their planting decisions.

Part D: Growing season. After students make their selection for planting, present them with the environmental outcomes of that growing season (Slides 20–21, Supporting File S1). This slide will describe some event that happened during the growing season and is immediately followed by how that event impacted their total yield. For instance, it might be a great growing season with no major issues. Students will then be able to triple the number of potatoes they planted with a “high yield” trait. Or students might face an unseasonably wet season that promotes the spread of pathogens, and students lose all the potatoes planted without a disease resistant trait.

The gain or loss of potatoes at this step simulates total seasonal yield. Give students a few seconds to calculate their end-of-season yield, then move forward to the next step.

Part E: Selling to market. Next, students will have the ability to sell their potatoes to market. Advance to Slides 22–23 in Supporting File S1 and present the market trends and subsequent values to the class. Give student groups time to discuss how and where they are going to sell their potatoes and calculate their season total sales. For simplicity, we asked students to sell all their potatoes at the end of each season.

After students sell potatoes, they will have an opportunity to receive a “Breeder Bonus,” a money bonus to groups that were able to accurately predict the market trends during that growing season.

Repeat Parts C–E for two more seasons. As students prepare for the next two planting seasons, they will be presented a news article or advertisement that give insights into different market trends in the upcoming year (i.e., Slide 25, Supporting File S1). These artifacts can be modified to be discrete or obvious at the discretion of the instructor. Do not stay on this slide for a long period of time—just long enough for students to read the documents. At the end of the third growing season, the team with the most money wins the game.

Activity Debrief

Use the remaining time in class to have students ask questions, complete an exit activity, or survey for immediate feedback on gameplay or content. We have provided an example exit activity on Slide 42 in Supporting File S1, and room to record their thoughts in section F of Supporting File S2.

Post-Class Assessment

Student progress of activity learning objectives can be evaluated in both summative and formative assessments. The following is an exam question we used that asked students to show their application of knowledge to a novel system, assessing Learning Objectives 1 and 3:

Your rice breeding lab discovers an amazing marker for drought resistance that can increase yields by up to 50% under drought conditions. You would like to introduce this trait to rice growing regions, where there are increased droughts due to climate change. However, you know that stakeholder input is important in the development and subsequent adaptation of a new cultivar.

1. Name two groups of stakeholders you should talk to in the regions you want to introduce this new trait.

2. Explain two reasons why the stakeholders mentioned above might reject your new drought resistant rice cultivars.

Class discussions can also formatively evaluate student learning following this activity. In the following lectures, we presented students with case studies highlighting breeding programs that had to incorporate consumer preference, such as the acceptance of vitamin A rich orange corn in many African countries (18). We would then ask students to compare the breeding program goals and the target customer preferences (addressing Learning Objective 2) and challenge them to brainstorm ways to integrate the two in subsequent breeding programs. A good follow up to this class discussion could include asking them to design a brochure communicating the benefits of a new variety to a specific market which would address Learning Objectives 1 and 2. Additional assessment materials are provided in Supporting File S5.

Teaching Discussion

Instructor Observations: Student Engagement

Students were very engaged throughout the activity. They brought many thought-provoking questions to the table, indicating they were pulling on previous knowledge, synthesizing it, and applying it to this activity. Many students were interested in instructor and TA stories about first-hand experiences in the field, which added richness and context to the activity.

In the first few iterations of this activity, there was some confusion at the activity introduction step, which prompted the development of an activity description script and associated worksheet. In addition, some students struggle with, or are afraid of, the math component of this activity. This is why we modified the rules to encourage students to work in multiples of five, had students work in groups to leverage different team member strengths, and ran the activity in an instructor team of two to help students along the way.

Student Reactions to the Lesson

This activity feeds into the competitiveness of the students but at no cost to their grades, which resulted in collaborative group discussion and critical thinking. While we primarily collected feedback from students to evaluate how to improve the mechanics of the game, students did organically report on the activities' larger impact on their learning. One student specifically stated in a final course evaluation that this activity “was helpful to understand all the issues in a breeding program” in response to a question about what aspects of the course they enjoyed the most. Students also reported that this activity helped them understand the importance of crop diversification and that they enjoyed being able to connect with their instructors and TAs questions and learn from their experiences.

Suggestions for Adaptations

This activity is not limited to potatoes and can be adapted for any crop. Changes to seasonal events and markets can be added or changed to fit the crop, local growing environment, or other common scenarios. Example alternative environmental scenarios: floods, high heat, or pests such as deer. Example alternative market conditions: preference on flavor, color, shape, or selling to smaller niche markets. Table 2 highlights lesson plan modifications for different class lengths.

Institutional Review Board (IRB) Approval

This activity was developed and evaluated under IRB protocol number 1708007347.

Supporting Materials

• S1. Plant Breeding RPG – Activity Slide Deck

• S2. Plant Breeding RPG – Student Activity Worksheet

• S3. Plant Breeding RPG – Parent Printout

• S4. Plant Breeding RPG – Understanding the Genetics of Our Pretend Population

• S5. Plant Breeding RPG – Example Exam Questions and Answers

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the TAs and Instructors who have helped us run and implement this activity across several courses, including Byron Rusnak, Chloe Siegel, Richard Tegtmeier and to Drs. Bruce Reisch and Bill Miller for letting us implement iterations of this activity in their classes. We appreciate the detailed feedback and comments from our friend and fellow active learning researcher Ash Heim. Both authors were supported by the Active Learning Initiative within the School of Integrated Plant Sciences at Cornell University and covered by IRB protocol number 1708007347 during activity development and assessment.

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