Modeling Meiosis

Materials (per group)

  • 2 3-inch red pipe cleaners
  • 2 3-inch blue pipe cleaners
  • 2 6-inch yellow pipe cleaners
  • 2 6-inch green pipe cleaners
  • 1 piece of yarn

Procedure

Refer to the diagram of the stages of Meiosis in your text book on page 548 to model the stages of meiosis.

Interphase

  1. Form a circle with the piece of yarn to model the cell membrane.
  2. Place one of each color pipe cleaner into the cell. These represent chromosomes. Right before cell division, all of the chromosomes are copied.

Add the matches of each chromosome to your cell.

Meiosis I

  1. Match the exact copies of each pipe cleaner. Twist the matching pieces together to form individual chromosomes.

Draw the chromosomes in the diagram below.

  1. Pairs of chromosomes that contain the same kind of information move toward each other.
  2. Find one pair of chromosomes that are the same size and place them together inside the cell. Find the other two chromosomes that are the same size and place them together inside the cell. One of each kind of chromosome was passed to this child from the mother and the other one came from the father.
  3. Next, the pairs of chromosomes line up in the middle of the cell.
  4. Move each pair of chromosomes to the middle of your cell.
  5. Now, the chromosome pairs separate so that one of each pair of chromosome moves to opposite sides of the cell. Model this process in your cell.
  6. This cell splits. Arrange the yarn to show this cell being divided in half.

Draw the chromosomes in the diagram below.

How many cells have been formed? ______

How many chromosomes are in each new cell? ______

Meiosis II

  1. The chromosomes line up in the middle of each new cell. Move your chromosomes to show this.
  2. The 2 halves of each chromosome separate and move away from each other to opposite sides of the cells.
  3. Untwist the pipe cleaners and move one of each pipe cleaner to opposite sides of your two new cells.
  4. Each of the two cells divides. Show that with the yarn.

Draw the chromosomes in the diagram below.

How many cells are formed? ______

How many chromosomes are in each new cell? ______

Do all of the cells have the same combination of chromosomes as each other? _____

Do all of the new cells have the same combination of chromosomes as the first cell you modeled at the beginning of the lab? ______

What can you conclude about the process of meiosis?