Crazy Plant Shop

What is it

In Crazy Plant Shop, students learn about genes and inheritance by breeding zany plants! Special order requests from mysterious customers require students to understand dominant and recessive traits and how genetic traits get passed from one generation to the next. Profits from successful sales are used to buy new breeds, purchase upgrades for your shop, and acquire new customers!

Crazy Plant Shop EDU includes access to the game, standards-aligned curriculum, and teacher dashboard for student progress tracking through a Filament Learning account. To sign up for a Filament Learning account, visit filamentgames.com/register.

Key learning objectives

• explains that information about how cells grow and function is contained in genes in the chromosomes of each cell nucleus and that during the process of reproduction the genes are passed from the parent cells to offspring
• provides evidence of how biological evolution accounts for the diversity of species on Earth today
• determines the probabilities for genotype and phenotype combinations using Punnett Squares and pedigrees
• explains why offspring that result from sexual reproduction are likely to have more diverse characteristics than offspring that result from asexual reproduction
  

What our experts think

Children really got into running their own plant shop, and this was a brilliant way to add context and purpose to learning about genes. Our testers really engaged with the idea of running their own shop and trying to make a profit. The funny characters were appealing too – we had lots of giggling with some of the customers!
Being able to experiment with the plants to see what could be made when different genes were mixed together was really popular. When children were creating an order you could tell children were really thinking hard about how to breed the plant they needed, some using trial and error to support their learning.

This is a fantastic app to help children learn about genes and inheritance, supporting the Year 6 national curriculum. It also generally encourages an interest in plants and science, as well as encouraging problem solving skills and strategic thinking.

It would be even better if...

Although it was great that children had the chance to experiment as much as they wanted, some testers needed more guidance on how to breed the plant they needed. This can be a good opportunity for an adult to discuss genes with the child while offering support.

Children sometimes got stuck while playing, for example, they didn’t realise they needn’t to tap the button to close the shop at the end of the day when there were no more customers. They generally got the hang of it quite quickly, but an adult might need to offer some help at first.