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Understanding blood types (and who can donate to who/receive from who) is really challenging for students to visualize. I used to lecture on this topic, and THEN have students create models with Play Doh...but I decided to change it up this year.
I didn't really see anything that looked promising on TPT, so I decided to do it myself! Using Canva for graphic design, I created red blood cells, antigens, and antibodies.
I divided the activity into two parts-
Part 1: Modeling the ABO types/interactions. Students need a good foundation there before they can add in the complicated Rh antigens and antibodies. In Part 1, students use the paper models & a worksheet to walk them through using the model and critically thinking through how the blood types interact with each other.
Part 2: After students are solid on Part 1, they can add in the Rh factor components. With a guided worksheet, once again, students have to think critically to discover how Rh factor plays a role in blood donation/receiving blood transfusions. They then have some challenging problems to test their understanding of the material.
Lastly, the TPT resource includes a web activity that has students look at the histology of blood under the microscope (online pictures), and use a fun interactive blood typing game to see if they can keep various patients alive with proper blood transfusions.
I'm really excited to use this model with my kiddos in a couple weeks. To make sure it was doable, I had my husband work through the prototype. He did great :).