Lab 2: Genetics

Here shown is the fly Punnett Square lab. In scenario 5 it asks us to make a cross of

1. a heterozygous,long wing fly

2. a heterozygous, long wing fly

In the Punnett square you can see that the probability of a long winged fly is 75%.

Here is the Dragon lab. In this lab you had to take the first dragon, which happens to be blue, with horns, without scales, with wings, no legs, ect....The second dragon was completely different and you had to change all the genotypes to try to make him identical to the first one.

Genetics are what makes up human beings. When a man and a women produce children, that child is made up of genetics from the parents. Each parent contributes certain features of a child. This could be consisted of (blond/brown/black hair, brown/blue/green eyes, light/dark skin...and so on). You could also look at the fly lab and see that when the two parents decided to have children, what the probability of having a long winged fly would be.

There are a couple terms that were discussed in this lab:

1. Genotype: They are the genes of an individual cell. They are represented by two letters. (AA) (Aa) (aa) The Genotypes in the fly lab include (LL)(Ll)(ll). For the dragon lab it included (Hh) (Ss)(Ww) and so on.


2. Phenotype: These are what the genes are representing. Examples include (blond hair, blue eyes, dark skin) In the dragon lab (scales, fire, legs, wings, horns, ect..) In the fly lab it included black or grey body, long or short wings.


3. Allele: These are the alternative for genes. These are what affect the genes.


4. Cross: The Punnett square is an example of this. These are what the parent's give to their children. Cross over.


5. Dominant: These are what masks the expression in the allele. They are represented by two uppercase letters (AA) They are heterozygous


6. Recessive: These are masked by the dominant genes. They are represented by two lower case letters (aa). They are homozygous

When talking about genetics it may get overwhelming just thinking about it. Using the Punnett Square is an easy way to get a visual representation of what genetics are all about and how they are contributed. It is interesting to try to figure out how genetics work. When I look at my son it's easy for me to picture. If you ever see my son, you'll see that he has some of my features (blond hair, blue eyes, pale skin) and he has some of my husbands features as well (blond hair, pale skin, and height). It is also interesting to see how much he looks like my family members and my in-laws.

I found a great website that has great examples of how to work out the Punnett Square.

http://biology.clc.uc.edu/courses/bio105/geneprob.htm