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Genetics Test Study Guide: Activities 54 – 71
Tips To Prepare for the Test:
 Review your 4 genetics quizzes!
 Review each activity and the analysis questions in your notebook. Answers to all of the analysis
questions are posted on google classroom!
 Review the vocabulary using Quizlet!
 Review this study guide of vocabulary and main concepts!
Activity 54: Investigating Human Traits
New Vocabulary
Characteristics: An attribute, such as eye or hair color.
Gene: A specific sequence of DNA that determines one or more traits.
Genetics: The study of heredity and the variation of inherited characteristics.
Trait: A specific version of a characteristic that varies from one individual to another.
Inherited: The passage of traits from parent to offspring.
Main Concepts
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
Traits can be inherited, environmentally acquired, or created by a combination of hereditary and
environmental factors.
Our class had variation in the characteristics of eye color, tongue rolling, finger crossing, PTC tasting, height,
and arm span.
Activity 55: Plants Have Genes, Too!
New Vocabulary
Offspring: Each new organism produced by sexual or asexual reproduction.
Main Concepts
 The plants that students bred in this activity were green and yellow.
Although the yellow trait seemed to be “lost” in the 2nd generation,
it reappeared in the third generation when we “bred” two green
parents.
Activity 56: Joe’s Dilemma
Main Concepts
 There are two types of diseases.
o Infectious Disease: Diseases that can be “caught” from
another person or the environment. Examples: flu,
chickenpox
o Genetic Disease: A disease that is inherited from a parent
and is passed to person through their
genes. Examples: Marfan syndrome, Sickle Cell Anemia

Marfan syndrome is a genetic disease which is not caught, but passed
down from parent to child.
Activity 57: Reproduction
New Vocabulary:
Fertilization: The union of a male sperm and a female egg to form a zygote.
Mutation: A change in the DNA of a gene that can lead to a different trait.
Egg Cell: A cell produced by a female that contains half the number of
chromosomes present in other body cells. It is also a female reproductive cell.
Sperm Cells: A cell produced by a male that contains half of the number of
chromosomes present in other body cells. It is also the male sex cell.
Clone: An offspring produced by asexual reproduction, either naturally or through artificial processes.
Asexual Reproduction: A process in which 1 parent makes an exact copy of itself without the union of gametes
Sexual Reproduction: A process by which a sperm cell from a male unites with an egg cell from a female to produce
offspring that inherit traits from both.
Main Concepts:
 Organisms reproduce through asexual or sexual reproduction. The forms of reproduction have similarities and
differences described in the Venn Diagram below.
ASEXUAL
SEXUAL
-One parent
- Two parents
-Offspring identical to parent
- Offspring are not identical
- Offspring inherit traits from
one parent
- Offspring inherit traits from
two parents
- Produce offspring
- Cloning is a form of asexual
reproduction
- Single- celled organisms do
not produce sexually
- Offspring’s genes are the
same as the parent’s
- Offspring inherits a unique set
of genes
Activity 58: Creature Features
New Vocabulary
Model: any representation of a system, or its components, to help one study and understand how it works.
Main Concepts
 In this activity, students bred two critters to see patterns in tail color. Breeding experiments, like this one, can
provide information about the behavior of genes



All members of the same species have the same number of genes
An organism’s genes come from its parents
Some traits are dominant over others
Activity 59: Gene Combo
New Vocabulary
Probability - A measure of how likely an event is to happen.
Random - Occurring without a definite reason or pattern.
Allele - A variant, or version, of a gene.
Dominant - The genetic condition in which one copy of a version of a gene (an allele) in
an individual gives rise to an observed trait.
Recessive - The genetic condition in which a trait is not observed in the phenotype of a
heterozygous individual.
Trade off - getting one thing at the cost of another.
Main Concepts:
 The characteristics of an organism can be described in terms of a combination of traits inherited from both
parents. In this activity, students displayed this by flipping coins.
Activity 60: Mendel, First Geneticist
Main Concepts
 Mendel’s pattern of inheritance: A particular characteristic has
two different versions, called traits. If an individual has alleles for both
versions of the trait, the dominant version appears, while the recessive
version is completely masked. When two individuals who have alleles for
both traits produce offspring, approximately ¼ of the offspring show the
recessive trait and ¾ show the dominant trait.
Activity 61: Gene Squares
New Vocabulary
Genotype - An individual’s pair of alleles for a specific gene or group of genes that determine a trait.
Heterozygous - An organism that has two different alleles for a specific trait.
Homozygous - An organism that has two identical alleles for a specific trait.
Phenotype - An organism’s observable traits.
Punnett square - A diagram that is used to show the likelihood of each outcome
of a breeding experiment.
Main Concepts
 Punnett squares can be used to predict the genotype and phenotype of
offspring during sexual reproduction.
1) SpongeBob’s cousin, SpongeJimBob, is a heterozygous yellow sponge. He recently married a blue sponge
girl. Create a Punnett square to help you answer the following questions.
a. What are the possible genotypes and phenotypes for the offspring?
b. What percentage would be yellow? ________%
c. What percentage would be blue? ________%
2) In Starfish, pink body color (P) is dominant to orange (p). Thick eyebrows (T) are dominant over thin (t)
ones. Patrick, who is heterozygous for body color, but purebred for thick eyebrows, has met Patti, who is recessive for
both traits.
a. What is Patti’s phenotype?
b. Is it possible for the new couple to have offspring that resemble their mother? Explain.
Before Patrick commits to this relationship, he would like to guarantee that his offspring would have his thick
eyebrows as he thinks they make him smarter! You need to provide evidence for or against the marriage with regards
to eyebrows ONLY.
Activity 62: Analyzing Genetic Data
Main Concepts
 When comparing the results of the “Plants Have Genes, Too!” experiment,
students found that their results follow Mendel’s pattern of inheritance.
Activity 63: Show Me the Genes
New Vocabulary
Chromosome - A strand of DNA—and sometimes associated proteins—that contains the genes that store hereditary
information.
Cell division - The process by which a parent cell splits to form two daughter cells in
order for an organism to grow and replace injured and worn out cells or to reproduce
via asexual reproduction.
DNA - Deoxyribonucleic acid; a long double-helical molecule, present in chromosomes,
that contains the genes.
Nucleus - The part of the cell that contains the genes.
Main Concepts

Cells are structures within the person. Chromosomes are structures within the
nucleus of each cell. Each gene is on a chromosome, which is made of a tightly coiled double-strand of DNA.
Activity 64: Nature and Nurture
New Vocabulary
Hypothesis - A possible explanation for observations, facts, or events, that may be tested, verified, or answered by
further investigation.
“Nature vs. nurture” - The relative influence of genes (“nature”) and the environment (“nurture”) in determining
certain traits.
Main Concepts
 In this activity, a controlled


experiment was developed to
see what was responsible for plant color, sunlight or the plants genes. Students put half their seeds in the dark
and half their seeds in the light to test their hypothesis. Their findings were that in order to develop the green
color, plants needed to be kept in the sunlight.
Some traits are determined by our genes (nature) and others are influenced by the environment (nurture).
o Example: I was born with brown eyes (nature), but I can put on contacts to make my eyes blue
(nurture). My genes do not change, they still say my eyes are brown.
It is unknown how much nature\nurture affects particular traits. For example, is our personality inherited
from our parents (nature), is it determined by our experiences (nurture) or is our personality influenced by
both, nature and nurture?
Activity 65: Breeding Critters – More Traits
New Vocabulary
Diversity - The range of different types of traits.
Main Concepts
 There are patterns of inheritance than Mendel’s!
o
o
o
Simple Dominance: When the dominant trait “masks” the recessive. An individual may carry both
dominant and recessive alleles, but only express the dominant. This is also known as Mendel’s Pattern
of Inheritance.
Co-dominance: When 2 or more alleles express themselves equally. Think of the spikes on the
critter. When the individual carried alleles for 2 green spikes and 1 blue spike, that individual
expressed all 3 spikes.
Incomplete Dominance: When two alleles both try to influence the trait but neither is expressed
completely. Like when the critter carried alleles for a long nose and a short nose, it expressed a
medium nose.
Activity 66: Patterns in Pedigrees
New Vocabulary
Carrier - An organism that carries and transmits a disease without exhibiting symptoms of the disease.
Co-dominance - A condition in which two traits have equal dominance and, as a result, both traits can be observed
distinctly in a heterozygous individual.
Incomplete dominance - A condition in which a heterozygous individual shows a trait that is different from either
homozygote, and usually intermediate between them.
Pedigree - A tree constructed from data collected on a single trait within a family.
Main Concepts
 Pedigrees are another tool that can be used to study genes
 Traits can be recessive or dominant
 Recessive traits often skip a generation in a pedigree
 The following techniques provide information on human genetics:
o breeding animals
o analyzing pedigrees
o examining DNA
1) Which blood types do the following allele pairs result in?
OO
AO
BO
AB
Type ____
Type ____
Type ____
Type ____
2) If a man and a woman both have the blood type AB,
what are the chances of them having a child
together who is type B? Explain.
3) The ability to roll your tongue is determined by the dominant gene (T). In the following pedigree, affected
individuals can roll their tongue. Affected individuals are shaded black. Based on the pedigree, determine the genotype
for each individual.
Activity 67: What Would You Do?
Main Concepts
 In this activity, students revisit to “Joe’s Dilemma”
and give him advice, based on evidence, whether
or not he should go for genetic testing.
Activity 68: Searching for the Lost Children
Main Concepts
 In this activity, students analyzed blood typing data to narrow down a
pool of children that could potentially be the missing children from two sets of
parents.
 This activity showed students that blood type data alone cannot
guarantee that individuals are related.
Activity 69: Evidence from DNA
New Vocabulary
DNA fingerprinting - A technique used to generate
a unique pattern of DNA sequences from an
individual, in order to identify the individual.
Main Concepts

This activity modeled how DNA
fingerprinting is completed.
 A virtual simulation of creating a DNA
fingerprint can be completed on the
following website:
http://www.pbslearningmedia.org/asset/tdc0
2_int_creatednafp2/
In what ways is DNA fingerprinting useful?
Which band represents the largest pieces of DNA?
Which band represents the most common length of DNA?
Activity 70: Finding the Lost Children
Main Concepts


In this activity, students matched the DNA
fingerprints of the children from Samarra to
their prospective biological parents.
DNA fingerprints of relatives will look similar
in comparison to people that are not related.
Activity 71: Should We
New Vocabulary
Ethics - A system of principles that can guide decisions and
practice in terms of whether something is morally right or
just.
Main Concepts

In this activity, students performed an ethical
analysis to decide what should be done with the lost
children of Namelia.