Class of February 8th, 2011

In class on Tuesday we finished checking the Punnett Square Practice and More Punnett Square Practice worksheets, then received our group schedules for science day on Thursday, February 10th.

After we looked the schedules over, we started work on the trait portion of science day, collecting information from the class on phenotypes for several different characteristics, then noting them down and writing them on the board.

Our homework, which can be found on Moodle, is to read pages 92-96 and 110-121. These pages are on the topic of mitosis and meiosis, and pedigrees and karyotypes of genetic disorders. We will be required to participate in class discussion on these.

Example of a Karyotype Profile

The Genetics Test is on Thursday, February 17th, with a review session during class and lunch (if needed) on the 15th of February.

The test will cover the following:

The Tour of the Basics

DNA Structure and Parts

The DNA Extraction Lab

Our Genetics Presentations

Punnett Squares

Meiosis

Inherited Traits/Mutations

and Pedigrees and Karyotypes

Punnett Squares on Thursday, February 3 and Dragon Genetics on Friday, February 4

Hi Everyone

On Thursday and Friday we mainly focused on doing the Punnett Square problems and did a couple of other things.

The first thing we did on Thursday was go through the Punnett Squares Sheet. Which was due for homework. If you lost it and would like to go over it again you can find it here. After that we were given a choice of what we wanted to do. It was either to work on a new sheet which is due tomorrow or it was to do something on a website called Dragon Genetics. In the end the class decided to do the sheet which is called More Punnett Square Problems. And for the rest of the class we did the sheet that is due tomorrow. This also applies to people that did Math Counts. Remember to print it from Moodle if you already lost it. If you are unclear about Punnett Squares this video might help.

The picture below shows two different alleles matched up using a Punnett Square. The t means the height. An uppercase T means taller. A lower case means shorter. You can see that the parent on the left is taller because he has a dominant uppercase T and a recessive lowercase t. The top parent has two recessive alleles which means that he/she is shorter.

On Friday's class we went to the computer lab and did the activity that we chose not to do. We did the Dragon Genetics. That can be found here. The assignment we did on Friday was a website in which we chose the correct traits for a dragon given the alleles of the parents. After we did this we were free to do whichever topic we wanted from the we

bsite. This included things like incomplete dominance and co-dominance and how does DNA work.

Below: Gregor Mendel - Austrian Scientist and Monk (Creator of the Punnett Square)

Thanks for reading!

I almost forgot. The Next Scribe is Dan.