When spending time with your own family, friends, and neighbors, you may have noticed that many traits run in families. For instance, members of a family may share similar facial features, hair color (like the brother and sister below), or a predisposition to health problems such as diabetes. Characteristics that run in families often have a 

, meaning that they depend on genetic information a person inherits from his or her parents.

What if you wanted to figure out how genetic information is transmitted between generations? For instance, you might be curious how traits can "skip" a generation, or why one child in a family may suffer from a genetic disease while another does not. How could you go about asking these kinds of questions scientifically?

In 1865, Mendel presented the results of his experiments with nearly 30,000 pea plants to the local Natural History Society. Based on the patterns he observed, the counting data he collected, and a mathematical analysis of his results, Mendel proposed a model of inheritance in which:

Based on the data we collected in Human Traits, which traits that we looked at would you guess are dominant and which are recessive?

Do you think your classroom population is typical of a larger population such as your entire school or community?

Was the recessive form of any trait more frequent than the dominant form?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mehz7tCxjSE

https://www.khanacademy.org/science/ap-biology/heredity/mendelian-genetics-ap/a/mendel-and-his-peas

Learn about dominant and recessive allele patterns in passing down traits. 

Mendel's Peas