Unit 4 Reflection

Recently we did a coin sex lab, where we wanted to test how we can use probability to predict what offspring would be like in different circumstances. The coins represented the genes that the two parents might pass on to their offspring, like whether or not the trait will be homozygous or heterozygous. In our dihybrid cross simulation, there are two individuals who are double heterozygous with brown hair ans brown eyes. After we labeled a meiosis to see what the cross would be and the possible gametes. Then after we filled out our dihybrid punnet square, we expected that the offspring would mainly have brown eyes and brown hair over having blue eyes and blond hair or a combination of the two. In our actual results over half of the offspring would have brown eyes and brown hair, and only one had blond hair and blue eyes. I think that because the brown eyes and brown hair was a dominant trait, it would've had a higher chance of the children inheriting the trait. For example, in another simulation about autosomal dominance, we did a monohybrid cross where the person didn't have the bipolar disorder run in their family, but the spouse was heterozygous for that trait. In our results for that simulation, the children mainly inherited the bipolar trait over not inheriting it. The limit of using probability to predict our offspring's traits is that it may show you the possibilities of what your child could inherit but it doesn't actually guarantee that the child will actually inherit or not inherit the allele. This relates to my life because it shows how the genes from my parents could've had different possibilities that I could've inherited, and that how there are many combinations that could either be passed by autosomal inheritance or x-linked inheritance.

This unit was about genetics and sex, such as how genes can be inherited and the different processes like mitosis and meiosis. Other things we learned about was the difference between asexual and sexual reproduction, and Gregor Mendel's Sex Laws which are the Law of Segregation and the Law of Independent Assortment. My strengths were when we had to use punnet squares to predict different possibilities that offspring can inherit, and my weakness was learning and understanding how mitosis and meiosis work and why they are important.

Throughout this unit, I learned more in depth about the topics that we had to include in our infographics, because we got to go over topics that we learned previously in our vodcasts and research more about them. I feel like I am a better student, because when we started this unit, I didn't fully understand the information in the vodcasts at first, but now after learning about the topics in the vodcasts more than one time helped me understand what we were learning. One question I have is in what situations would you use a dihybrid cross over a monohybrid cross.