Cousin Clash
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Teacher Card
How to use it
- Solo: one student, one device, about 10 minutes.
- Partner Duel: two students share a laptop. Each has their own keys, so nobody waits.
- Whole class: project Partner Duel with two student captains.
- Español button switches every student screen to Spanish.
- Read aloud uses the device's built-in voices. Pick one from the Voice menu.
- Leer en español (on English screens): a Spanish voice reads while the English sentence lights up, and each science word glows as its Spanish twin is spoken. Spanish speakers hear it in Spanish and learn the English terms. To choose the Spanish voice, tap Español once and pick from the Voice menu; the device remembers it.
Scientist Mode (grades 8 and 9)
- Questions use the term MRCA (most recent common ancestor).
- The tree shows clade names and split ages on every node.
- Answers name the synapomorphy (shared derived trait).
- The final screen shows the tree in Newick format, the text code scientists use for trees.
Teacher Builder
- Choose 5 to 14 animals from a library of 19. Every split time and trait is pre-checked, so custom sets stay accurate.
- The game builds the tree and 10 questions for you.
- Students type your class code on the start screen. No accounts needed.
Standards
- MS-LS4-2: use anatomical similarities to infer relationships among living and fossil organisms.
- MS-LS4-1: fossils show life forms that existed and changed over Earth's history.
- High school stretch: HS-LS4-1, multiple lines of evidence for common ancestry (anatomy and DNA).
Built from the History of Earth lesson
- Turns the lesson's Elaborate question ("How far back do you go to find the common ancestor? Who goes back the furthest?") into the game.
- Keeps Anomalocaris from the lesson's Engage video as a fossil cousin.
- Fills the lesson's empty Evaluate step with an exit ticket.
Science notes
- Split times are rounded medians from TimeTree 5 and fossil evidence. Real estimates come with error bars.
- Fossil branches (marked †) end at the fossil's age.
- Some groups (like humans plus mice, or turtles plus crocodiles) are known mostly from DNA, so the trait shown is "matching DNA."
- Sources: TimeTree 5, turtles as sister to birds and crocodiles, platypus and echidna genomes.
Explore More
- Trait Cards: tap any dot on the tree. Kids see what the trait means, every animal that has it lights up, and a surprise fact (like snakes still being in the fingers-and-toes family).
- Cousin Cards: tap any animal for its painted card, where it lives (with Tennessee ties), its closest cousin on the tree and a fun fact.
- Trait Hunt: 5 quick hunts. Kids tap every animal in a trait's family, earn stars for few mistakes, and learn that traits nest inside each other.
- Works with any Teacher Builder set. Every card reads aloud, and Leer en español works on every card.
Videos and readings for each branch
Every link opens in a new tab. All come from PBS, NOVA, HHMI BioInteractive, the Smithsonian, UC Berkeley, the National Park Service or Shape of Life. None are on YouTube, so school filters are less likely to block them. Links were checked on October 1, 2026. Please preview each one before class.