How can we study inheritance?

When spending time with your own family, friends, and neighbors, you may have noticed that many
traits run in families. For instance, members of a family may share similar facial features, an uncommon
hair color (like the brother and sister below), or a predisposition to health problems such as diabetes.
Characteristics that run in families often have a genetic basis, meaning that they depend on genetic
information a person inherits from his or her parents.

The monk in the garden: Gregor Mendel

Johann Gregor Mendel (1822–1884), often called the “father of genetics,” was a teacher, lifelong
learner, scientist, and man of faith. After finishing university, he joined the Augustinian Abbey of St.
Thomas in Brno, in what is now the Czech
Republic. At the time, the monastery was the
cultural and intellectual hub of the region, and
Mendel was immediately exposed to new
teachings and ideas.

In 1856, Mendel began a decade-long research

project to investigate patterns of inheritance.
Although he began his research using mice, he
later switched to honeybees and plants,
ultimately settling on garden peas as his
primary model system. A model system is an
organism that makes it easy for a researcher to
investigate a particular scientific question, such
as how traits are inherited. By studying a model
system, researchers can learn general
principles that apply to other, harder-to-study
organisms or biological systems, such as
humans.

Mendel studied the inheritance of seven

different features in peas, including height,
flower color, seed color, and seed shape. To do
so, he first established pea lines with two
different forms of a feature, such as tall vs.
short height. He grew these lines for
generations until they were pure-breeding
(always produced offspring identical to the
parent), then bred them to each other and
observed how the traits were inherited.

In addition to recording how the plants in each generation looked, Mendel counted the exact number of
plants that showed each trait. Strikingly, he found very similar patterns of inheritance for all seven
features he studied:
  One form of a feature, such as tall, always concealed the other form, such as short, in the first
generation after the cross. Mendel called the visible form the dominant trait and the hidden
form the recessive trait.
 In the second generation, after plants were allowed to self-fertilize (pollinate themselves), the
hidden form of the trait reappeared in a minority of the plants. Specifically, there were always
about 33 plants that showed the dominant trait (e.g., tall) for every 11 plant that showed the
recessive trait (e.g., short), making a 3:13:1 ratio.
 Mendel also found that the features were inherited independently: one feature, such as plant
height, did not influence inheritance of other features, such as flower color or seed shape.

In Mendel's work on pea plants, each gene came in just two different versions, or alleles, and these
alleles had a nice, clear-cut dominance relationship (with the dominant allele fully overriding the
recessive allele to determine the plant's appearance).

Today, we know that not all alleles behave quite as straightforwardly as in Mendel’s experiments. For
example, in real life:

 Allele pairs may have a variety of dominance relationships (that is, one allele of the pair may not
completely “hide” the other in the heterozygote).
 There are often many different alleles of a gene in a population.

In these cases, an organism's genotype, or set of alleles, still determines its phenotype, or observable
features. However, a variety of alleles may interact with one another in different ways to specify
phenotype.
Design a Super Baby
Select two of your favorite superheroes/villains (1 male and 1 female)

https://www.marvel.com/ and https://www.dccomics.com/ are good places to look for inspiration (You
can also pick Disney characters if you would like). Then identify 5 traits from each and list them below.
Each of the 5 traits must be the same for both characters but will have different variations (i.e. hair color
is a trait, but one character could have blonde hair and one could have black hair)

Ex. Superpower (trait) for Superman and Elastagirl – superpower is the trait that they both have but
Superman has super strength as his phenotype and Elastagirl has stretchiness as her phenotype. If they
each have more than one superpower you can have superpower 1, 2, 3…

Character Name:
Trait Phenotype
1.
2.
3.
4
5.
Sex (XX) Female
Character Name:
Trait Phenotype
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Sex (XY) Male

Paste an image of your 2 characters here

In this activity, most traits will show complete dominance. There will be dominant and recessive alleles.

In the table below you will determine the genotype of the traits in your selected characters.

1. Assign a letter to the phenotype – ex. Hair color will be represented by B for the dominant allele
and b for the recessive allele
2. Roll a die to determine which character is has the dominant allele and which has the recessive
allele
a. Odd number- character 1 is dominant
b. Even number- character 2 is dominant
3. Roll a die again to determine if the character with the dominant allele is heterozygous (Bb) or
homozygous (BB)
a. Odd number – heterozygous
b. Even number – homozygous
4. The character who was NOT selected as the dominant gene carrier assumes a homozygous
recessive genotype (bb)
5. Virtual dice can be found here: https://www.random.org/dice/

Trait Who is dominant? Who is recessive? Heterozygous or

heterozygous?
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

Complete the Punnett squares for each trait.

Example

Trait 1: Hair color

B B
b Bb Bb
b Bb Bb

What is the percent chance of a dominant phenotype?

_____100______%

What is the percent chance of a recessive phenotype?

______0_____%
Trait 1:

What is the percent chance of a dominant phenotype?

___________%

What is the percent chance of a recessive phenotype?

___________%

Trait 2:

What is the percent chance of a dominant phenotype?

___________%

What is the percent chance of a recessive phenotype?

___________%

Trait 3:

What is the percent chance of a dominant phenotype?

___________%

What is the percent chance of a recessive phenotype?

___________%
Trait 4:

What is the percent chance of a dominant phenotype?

___________%

What is the percent chance of a recessive phenotype?

___________%

Trait 5:

What is the percent chance of a dominant phenotype?

___________%

What is the percent chance of a recessive phenotype?

___________%

Sex

X X
X
Y

What is the percent chance of a female child?

___________%

What is the percent chance of a male child?

___________%
Create your superhero/villain baby

In the Punnett squares above, number the boxes 1-4. Roll a die again to get a number (1-4) that
corresponds with one of the boxes (if you roll a 5 or 6 roll again until you get a 1-4). Record the genotype
and phenotype associated with that square in the table below. You should roll the die a separate time
for each Punnett square.

Virtual dice can be found here: https://www.random.org/dice/

Name your new character:

Trait Genotype (letters) Phenotype

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Sex (XX or XY)

BONUS – you will get 2 bonus points if on a separate sheet of paper, you draw/color your new super
baby. Either draw and scan or draw and take a picture with your phone and upload to Blackboard in the
submission folder.