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First Document Mendelian Genetics Lesson Study Script

- The document provides instructions for a lesson on Mendelian genetics. It summarizes Gregor Mendel's experiments with pea plants and the principles of inheritance that he discovered, including dominant and recessive traits, genotypes and phenotypes, and the use of Punnett squares to predict offspring traits. - Students are guided through examples of setting up and solving Punnett squares to determine possible genotypes and phenotypes when different pea plants are crossed. Traits like seed color and shape are used as examples. - The lesson concludes by having students practice additional crosses involving other traits that Mendel studied, and then directing them to an online practice for more scenarios.

Uploaded by

Camille Aquino
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
111 views

First Document Mendelian Genetics Lesson Study Script

- The document provides instructions for a lesson on Mendelian genetics. It summarizes Gregor Mendel's experiments with pea plants and the principles of inheritance that he discovered, including dominant and recessive traits, genotypes and phenotypes, and the use of Punnett squares to predict offspring traits. - Students are guided through examples of setting up and solving Punnett squares to determine possible genotypes and phenotypes when different pea plants are crossed. Traits like seed color and shape are used as examples. - The lesson concludes by having students practice additional crosses involving other traits that Mendel studied, and then directing them to an online practice for more scenarios.

Uploaded by

Camille Aquino
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Lesson Script

NOTE: Uploaded are files with Mendelian Genetics Vocabulary Word


Flashcards that students can write the definitions or examples, in their
own words, as the lesson is conducted. This is a great accommodation for
those students that require it.
If you lost a dog and wanted to put up posters around town but couldnt put a
picture on the poster, what would you write so people would know it was your dog if
they see one?
Think about a particular breed of dog. What types of features indicate a particular
breed?
Can you tell individuals apart within a breed?
These features you described are called traits. When traits are passed from
generation to generation it is called inheritance, or heredity. The scientific study of
inheritance is called genetics.
The study of genetics began with a man named Gregor Mendel. Because of this, he
is called the father of genetics. Mendel was an Austrian monk. His monastery sent
him to the University of Vienna to study botany and mathematics.
Mendel spent a great deal of time studying garden pea plants, which are truebreeding plants. This means that they consistently produce offspring with only one
form of a trait. Pea plants normally reproduce by self-fertilization, which is when the
male gamete (sperm or pollen) of a flower combines with the female gamete (egg)
of the same flower. A gamete is a sex-cell that has half the number of
chromosomes (the structures that contain the genetic material that is passed from
generation to generation) of an organism. So, this means that a gamete has half
the information that will determine the traits of the offspring. In plants that selffertilize, both the male and female gametes are in the same flower or plant. When
they reproduce in this way, the offspring are nearly identical to the parent plant.
Pea plants can also be cross-pollinated, which is when the male gamete of one
flower is combined with the female organs of a different flower of a different plant.
In this case, half of the chromosomes, or genetic material, comes from one flower of
one plant, and the other half comes from a different plant, so the offspring will have
some variance from the parents.
Mendel noticed that the pea plants had specific traits generation after generation.
One such trait was green seeds versus yellow seeds. He wanted to understand how
this happened, so he cross-pollinated the male gamete of a true-breeding green
seed plant with the female organs of a true-breeding yellow seed plant. To be sure
the plants didnt self-pollinate, he removed the male organs from the yellow seed
plants. He called these two plants the parent or P generation.

Lesson Script
Mendel found that all of the offspring of these two plants had yellow seeds. He
called these offspring the first filial, or F1 generation. The word filial comes from the
Latin words for son (filius) and daughter (filia). It seemed like the green-seed
trait had disappeared.
Mendel decided to cross these to see if the green-seed trait really had disappeared.
He planted the seeds from the F1 generation and then let them grow and selffertilize. Then he examined the seeds that were produced. He called these
offspring the second filial, or F2 generation. Of the seeds he collected, 6022 were
yellow and 2001 were green. This is an almost perfect 3:1 ratio of yellow to green
seeds.
Mendel concluded that there were two forms of the seed color trait (yellow and
green) and each are controlled by a factor we now know as alleles. An allele is an
alternative form of a gene passed from generation to generation. Alleles come from
the genes in the chromosomes of the parents.
Mendel called the form of the trait seen in the F 1 generation dominant, and the form
of the trait that was masked in the F1 generation recessive. The dominant trait has
the ability to mask the recessive trait.
When modeling inheritance, the dominant allele is represented by a capital letter,
and the recessive allele is represented by the same letter in lower case. Each
parent has two alleles for a trait. One allele is inherited from each parent. When an
organism has two of the same alleles, they are considered homozygous. When they
have two different alleles, they are called heterozygous. If at least one dominant
allele is present, the organism will exhibit that dominant trait.
In the case of the seed color for the pea plant, well use the letter Y because yellow
was the dominant color. The homozygous alleles will be YY and yy. The
heterozygous allele will be Yy. When writing both alleles of an organism, this is
called the genotype. We can look at the genotypes to determine which trait will be
visible. The visible trait is called the phenotype.
Lets look back at the genotypes of the seed color for the pea plant. We already
determined that there are three possible combinations of alleles, two for
homozygous (dominant and recessive) and one for heterozygous. Therefore, there
are 3 possible genotypes for this cross. Now lets determine the phenotypes.
Remember, if at least one dominant allele is present in the genotype, the dominant
trait will be displayed.
YY yellow; yy green; Yy yellow
If you remember, in meiosis the chromosome number is divided in half, so gametes
only have one of the pair of alleles. During fertilization, two alleles for that trait
unite. This is called the law of segregation. In simpler terms, if we take a pea plant
2

Lesson Script
with the genotype YY, in meiosis these alleles split into two Ys. During fertilization,
one of these Ys would unite with one allele (half a genotype) from the other parent.
Now we can use this knowledge to predict the possible traits in the offspring if we
know the genotypes of the parents. Lets look back at Mendels pea plants again.
We can take two genotypes and predict what the offspring will look like (phenotype)
using a simple table known as a Punnett Square.
Well take at the homozygous dominant plant and cross it with the homozygous
recessive, as Mendel did in his experiments. Split the genotype of the male into two
alleles and write them across the top. If you remember, the male pea plant
produced green seeds, so it is the homozygous recessive genotype (yy). Now
separate the genotype of the female, the homozygous dominant (YY), into alleles
and write them vertically along the left side.

y
[T
y

Now we cross the gametes by matching the parent alleles that are above and to the
left of each square to determine the possible genotypes for the offspring. If you
have only one dominant allele, it must be written first in the genotype.

Y
Y

Yy

Yy

Yy

Yy

Look in each square and list all the different genotypes present. Notice in this cross
that they are all Yy, or heterozygous. What is the phenotype for this? So, all of the
offspring have yellow seeds. If you remember, this is the same as what Mendel
found in his experiment.
3

Lesson Script
Now lets try a different cross. This time, we will cross a heterozygous male with a
homozygous dominant female. Well set it up together, then I want you to practice
the cross on your own white board (or paper).
Y
Y
Y

YY

Yy

YY

Yy

What genotypes did you get? (YY, Yy) What phenotypes? (all yellow)
Does anyone notice anything significant about both of these crosses? (They all have
the yellow phenotype)
What was the same in both sets of parents? (Homozygous dominant female)
Since the offspring get half of its genotype from each parent, when at least one
parent is homozygous dominant, the offspring will always get at least one dominant
allele. Since the dominant trait masks the recessive one, these offspring of a
homozygous dominant parent will always show the dominant trait.
Now I want you to practice a few more on your white board.

YY x YY
Y
Y

YY

YY

YY

YY

yy x yy

Lesson Script

yy x Yy
Y

Yy x Yy

yy

yy

yy

yy

yY

Yy

Yy

yy

yy

YY

Yy

Yy

yy

Mendel also studied 6 other traits in his pea plants:


Flower color (purple dominant over white); Seed pod color (green dominant over
yellow); Seed shape/texture (round dominant over wrinkled); Seed pod shape (round
dominant over constricted); Stem length (tall dominant over dwarf); Flower position
(axial along stem dominant over terminal at top of stem).

Lesson Script
Lets practice predicting offspring using a different trait, seed shape. Remember,
round is dominant over wrinkled.
Cross a wrinkled seed plant with a purebred (another name for homozygous) round
(round dominant over wrinkled)

r
R

Rr

Rr

Rr

Rr

Cross a hybrid (another name for heterozygous) with a purebred wrinkled.

Now cross 2 hybrids.

Rr

rr

Rr

rr

RR

Rr

Rr

rr

Now that you have a better understanding of this, you are going to practice on the
computer with some different scenarios.
6

Lesson Script
NOTE: Teachers, the Mendelian Genetics Website uploaded files will
contain the locations for the computer practice.

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