Biology - HOT Science Lab

Teacher
Investigating Inherited Traits
(Adapted from: District Adopted – Prentice Hall Lab Manual B)
NGSSS:
SC.912.L.16.1 Use Mendel‘s laws of segregation and independent assortment to analyze
patterns of inheritance. (AA)
Purpose of Lab/Activity:
To investigate the probability of genotypes and phenotypes of an offspring.
To investigate traits that are dominant, hybrid, and recessive.
Prerequisites:
Students should understand the concepts of Punnett squares, probability, genotype,
dominant traits, recessive traits, alleles, genes, and phenotype.
Review Mendels‘s laws of segregation and independent assortment.
Students should understand how these processes occur in the cell during the process of
Meiosis.
Students should also be familiar with the following modes of inheritance: dominant,
recessive, co-dominant, sex-linked, polygenic, and multiple alleles.
Materials (per pair):
3 textbooks
2 coins
Procedure: Day of Activity:
Before
activity:
What the teacher will do:
a. Prep work: To reduce the noise produced by the flipping of coins, use
plastic disks used for bingo or tiddlywinks (available at toy or hobby shops).
1. Have students place a small piece of masking tape on each side of the
two disks. Mark one side of each disk ‖H‖ (heads) and the other side of
each disk ―T‖ (tails).
2. Remind students that the pieces of masking tape should be the same
size so that both sides of the coin or disk are the same mass. (Optional)
b. Essential question (or problem statement):
―If you have both parent phenotypes for a trait, then can you accurately
predict the phenotype of an offspring‖
The answers to the hypothesis will vary; an acceptable answer can be that
they could not accurately determine the phenotype of the offspring
because of recessive traits.
c. Some common misconceptions associated with inherited traits and how
they can be resolved are provided below:
1. Students incorrectly believe that if no one else in the family is affected,
the condition is not inherited. Students often believe that if they do not
see a characteristic such as in their family, then it must not be inherited.
For example, if a student had a hitchhikers thumb, but their parents and
possibly grandparents did not, then the student may believe something
happened to their thumb to make it bend back. This is especially
Biology HSL Page 165
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