Final Reports
Fall 2002
Final Report from Gateway Regional
High School Woodbury
Heights, NJ
We are the students of Gateway Regional High School. Gateway is located in Woodbury Heights, New Jersey. Half of the school’s 7th grade science classes and the one section of 12th grade Anatomy and Physiology participated in this collaborative project. Our class had much success with this project and plan to continue to use the data generated from all of the schools for a future in-depth study of genetics. We found this project very user-friendly and were able to carry out the requirements with ease. The most important lesson we learned was the scientific benefits of using a large data set to draw scientific conclusions. The larger the amount of data the more reliable our results can be. We also learned the benefits of using the internet to communicate with other people to carry out scientific investigations. The internet certainly makes this process much easier than using phone calls and traditional mail services.
For the outcome of this project we can conclude what some of the dominant and recessive genes are for the human race today. We found that the data for our class mostly reflected what other schools found, but we can consider our data more reliable because it is combined with a large numbers. The only thing we would change is to possibly have more students participate and then group that data based on race or gender and see if there are any patterns that develop. Some of the students would have liked the project leader to provide the totals and percentages on the data spreadsheet, the teacher saw the value of the students completing the calculations themselves. We found the data mostly matched our expectations because what we saw most common in our classroom, other schools saw also. So what was common here was common in other schools too.
We have not completely analyzed the data set yet because our teacher
plans to use it later in the year with our genetics unit, however we did
highlight our numbers and compare them to the numbers with the other schools. We
found that in most cases the traits that showed up the most were generally the
traits that are considered dominant. An
exception to that was the white forelock. We did not see a high rate of that
trait in our population even though it is considered dominant.
We want to thank the project leader for his efforts and time put into the project. We have learned a lot and know the lessons will continue even after the project is finished.
Final Report from West Jordan Middle School, West Jordan, UT
Most of the students, as expressed in their hypotheses at
the beginning of the project, expected to find dominant genes to be more common
than recessive genes. Their hypotheses were not supported by the data as is
indicated by the occurrance of the white forelock trait, mid-digit hair, and
even the straight thumb. In these cases, according to students analysis, the
dominant genes appears to be less frequent in the population, thus allowing for
the expression of the recessive gene in such high numbers. "We thought that
the dominant genes would be more common. In amny cases our hypothesis waasn't
supported by the data. The dominant genes are less common than many of the
recessive ones." Another group wrote, "We thought that recessive genes
would be the most common genes. It appears that most people do not have the
dominant genes, therefore their children will not have them."
We analyzed the data by groups, each group taking a particular set of data. We
then shared data from group to group and class to class. Most agreed that it was
hard to analyze so much data. Most students said that it was an interesting
project.
Final Report from Solomon Schechter Day School, Newton, MA
From doing this project we learned that just because a
trait is dominant doesn’t mean that more people will have that trait. There
isabsolutely no relationship between frequency of a trait and whether that
traitis dominant or recessive. For example,the white forelock gene is dominant,
but 93% of the population doesn’t have it.
We expected a direct relationship between dominance and appearance of a trait in
the population studied. We predicted in class that the dominant trait should be
morecommon. The ratio should be around 3:1dominant to recessive. There are
threepossible genotypes for the dominant phenotype (HH, Hh, hH) and only one
genotype for the recessive phenotype (hh).
However, in our actual data, this was not the case exceptfor earlobes (65%:35%)
andcolorblindness (98%:2%). In all the other traits, the ratios were closer
to50%:50%; dominant and recessive traits show up more or less equally in
thepopulation we studied. In fact, in 3 of 7 traits we found recessive traits to
be more common than dominant traits!
Red green colorblindness occurred in only 2% of the population. 63% of
colorblind individuals were male; 37%of colorblind individuals were female. It
appears to be sex-linked since it is dominant in males and recessivein females.
From this, we can concludethat the gene for colorblindness is most likely on the
X chromosome.
The genetics project went very well and it was fun to do. Wewere able to
complete the project as it was designed. Our class collected thedata, analyzed
it and got everything in on time. This project helped our skills in surveying,
data collection andmath. To analyze the data, we added up the columns and found
the percentages. If we did this project again, we would let acomputer do the
computations.
Although we collected a lot of data (over 12,000 people for most traits), this
is still a small sample and not necessarily representative of all the people in
the world.
Final Report from Wickford Middle School, North Kingstown, RI
A trait is a characteristic that an organism can pass on to
its offspring through its genes. An example of a trait would be eye color. Some
traits are dominant, which means that they always show up in an organism when an
allele is present. Other traits are recessive,
or covered up when a dominant allele is present. The question that comes up is:
Are dominant traits more common in a population?
Many studies have been done on the subject of gene
dominance. In class, we were given a sample study chart containing data on six
dominant traits. The traits that were studied were free earlobes, white
forelocks, dimples, straight thumbs, bent pinkies and mid-digit hair. The study
was done on a population and the study showed that four of the six dominant
traits DID NOT show up more often in the population. Recessive traits actually
showed up more often two-thirds of the time.
In conclusion, I would say that even if a trait is
dominant, that definitely does not mean that it will show up more often in a
population. Dominant traits actually showed up more often only one-third of the
time in this study.
Report prepared by: Vincent
Final Report from Millburn Middle School-NYITRAI
Hello from Millburn Middle School in Millburn, New Jersey,
USA. Our class was able to complete the assignment with ease and excitement. The
pictures and tests that were provided on your site allowed us to figure out the
different genetic traits and classify our selves with speed and accuracy. We had
an exciting time figuring out which of us had what trait and comparing and
contrasting the results with in our class and the other class in our school.
The most exciting scientific idea that we learned was the way that the traits
were classified. We also enjoyed the “reference material” section. It
provided excellent information in understanding the classification and trait
attributes. We would recommend this online activity to any middle or high
school. It provided a great framework of directions and forms as well as
connecting to our science curriculum in 8th grade.
Originally, we expected that the dominant traits would occur more often, and to
our surprise they did not. In some cases for us they were close to being even
for example the MID DIGIT hair was almost 50%. Where as the dominant trait of
having a WHITE FORLOCK did not occur at all in our class. When comparing our
class results with those of the entire survey, the results were roughly equal.
We had difficulty in calculating the totals. We used Microsoft Excel and could
not alter your spreadsheet without re-entering the entire set of numbers. The
numbers were closely matched to our own and another student in the class is
trying to figure out the graph to make the calculations.
If our school could redo this project, we would like to have had more traits to
compare and contrast. Just by participating in the project we learned that some
of the students had some interesting traits such as webbed-feet and bilateral
uvula. We think it would be great to see if those traits were dominant or
recessive.
We would like to thank the project coordinator for all his hard work and we look
forward to working with him in the future.
Thank You,
Miss Nyitrai's 5th Period class
Final Report from St. Michael School, Shererville, IN
We have been studying genetics in our textbook, as well as
completing other hands-on activities that relate to genetics. This project
helped the classes take a real-life peek at genetic traits in their families,
classroom, community, and world around them! Their final thoughts are summed up
below.
8-15
We were able to complete the project as it was presented. We had time to work on
it in class and often worked together to calculate the data. It was easier to
have a lot of people working with all the numbers and checking each other too.
We learned that sometimes dominant traits showed up more often, but they didn't
always show up more often. We weren't sure why that was, but that is what we saw
in the data.
We could explain what we saw in the project results because we used some
different ways to look at the data. Percentages, ratios, and our bar graphs
helped us figure out which traits occurred more often.
If we could speak to the project leader, we might ask that the data be organized
so it didn't take up so much space. We had the chart hanging on our front board
and it was over two feet wide and more than three feet long. We would also ask
that totals could be calculated on the chart because it would be easier for a
computer program to total up all those numbers. Real scientists use computers to
do things like that so it isn't like we would be cheating. Also, we didn't get
the question about frequency range (#8), so maybe it could be stated a different
way. Finally, the information on red-green colorblindness didn't say how many
males and how many females had the trait of colorblindness. We learned from our
book that the trait is sex-linked, so it would have been interesting to see how
the data turned out. (If this was listed, we didn't see it.) Really, the project
was very good, but those are some ideas we had to make it better.
The results were a kind of surprising because we all thought that dominant
traits would always be more common because of Mendel's ideas with his pea
plants. We still don't know why some recessive traits show more often, but one
activity we did with toothpicks gave us the idea that maybe the environment made
the dominant trait die out somehow. That is about all. We really like doing the
project. Thanks!
8-17
We completed the project as our teacher told us to, but we didn't do
colorblindness, so I guess we didn't complete the project as it was designed.
We learned that dominant traits aren't always most common.
If we had the chance to do this project again, we would like to separate the
results by male and female. We might also choose to study fewer physical traits,
or maybe some different physical traits. Some of us also thought it would be
easier to only compare percentages and not do ratios too.
The results of this study were different than we thought because we thought
dominant traits would be more common.
We didn't see a pattern with how often a trait occurred. Some traits were close
in their ratios and some had really big differences like white forelocks.
We used percentages, ratios, and graphs to compare the data and see if the
percents were like the ones Mendel saw in Punnett squares. Some of them were
pretty different. That sums up what we thought about the project. Thanks for
letting us participate.
Final Report from St. Stanislaus School, Cleveland, OH
Both classes were able to comple the project as it was
designed. Everything went smooth. The students surveyed an adequate amount of
people to come up with some very good outcomes.
Both classes enjoyed applying the scientific method to this project. We liked to
use the word "Hypothesis" instead of a guess of some sort. We felt as
if we really learned something for a change.
The outcome of the project was what we expected. We thought that we would find
more dominant traits than recessive. We found out that our teacher has recessive
ear lobes. That was cool because we did not have to ask her why she did not wear
earrings anymore. We did not realize that all over the world, the other classes
would find the same thing.
We really did not see anything that needed to be improved. Our teacher answered
whatever questions we had. It was good that she had done this project before.
Our results did match our expectations because like we said before, the dominant
trait occurred more often. We did not expect to find anyone with white forelock.
We only saw someone on a soap opera. Mrs. Kamfolt said that he did not count.
We had a group of students sit down and go through the information using tally
marks. The group was made up of mostly girls. They seemed to like doing things
like that.
The trait occurred more often and when it did occur it was dominant most of the
time. We found that to be very interesting.
Final Report from Heyward Gibbes Middle School, Columbia, SC
To whom it may concern:
Heyward Gibbes Middle School is a middle "School of Promise".We want
to experience success this school year.Success will be depending on developing
effective study habits,regular attendence,and self-dicipline.Heyward Gibbes is
located on 500 Summerlea Dr. in Columbia,South Carolina,29203.It is in the Eau
Claire community.The elevation is 45.The longitute is 80 and latitude is 30.We
have did 6 types of diseases including:Ears,Dimples,Pinky,Red-Green Color
Blindness,White Forlocks,Thumb,and Mid-Digit hair.
Ears:Total-188
Dominant-137 and Reccessive-51
Dimples:Total-166
Dominant-110 and Reccessive-56
Pinky:Total-272
Dominant-70 and Reccessive-202
Red-Green Color Blindness:Total-300
1 showing colorblindness and 299 with normal vision.
White Forlocks:Total-169
Dominant-117 and Reccessive-52
Thumb:Total-157
Dominant-97 and Reccessive-60
Mid-Digit Hair:Total-374
Dominant-123 and Reccessive-251
We answered the 10 questions and the results were:
1.Yes,because we didn't want to fail.
2.That people in the world are different from everybody else.
3.That the outcome is very different from our educated guess.
4.Nothing
5.That we could ask more people.
6.No,because there was more dominant than reccessive in most of the diseases.
7.Ask 25 people and get 1 person to add all of the numbers up.
8.67
9.Yes,because there were more dominant in all of the data except the Pinky and
the Mid-Digit Hair.
10.That if 1 of your parents has the Red-Green Color blindness,you will most
likely get the disease.
Students can learn in different ways.So become confident,self-directed,and
lifelong learners.
AAP Science Class
Final Report from Fruitland Middle School, Fruitland, Idaho
Our class was able to complete the project as designed. Our
internet access was down quite a bit,
but we were able to view the color blindness tests and send in our data. The
most important new idea we
learned was that the dominant trait isn't always the most common trait. We
learned that genes are
located on chromosomes and we get 23 chromosomes from dad and 23 from mom. We
discussed this a lot
when we looked at the data for the color blindness surveys.
One thing we would do differently is to have more of our students complete their
surveys and get data
from more family members. We have 4 other 6th grade classes and had hoped to
have them participate also,
but they didn't get to it. We used "taste papers," which had chemicals
like sodium benzoate on them. They
were fun. It would be cool to include the taste papers as a separate survey like
you do for color blindness.
The results didn't match our expectations because we hypothesized that dominant
traits would always be
more common. We had many questions about traits that weren't dominant or
recessive or had more than one
gene for that trait. Some students are researching to find out more information
on things like hair color and
left handedness.
We put our class results on an Excel spreadsheet to analyze them before sening
them to the internet site.
Most of our percentages were similar to the survey's totals, so the ranges were
similar.
We had one boy whose father was color blind. The boy's dad had one brother who
was color blind and
one who was not. Both the dad's paternal and maternal grandfathers were color
blind. We think the dad got
his color bindness on the X chromosome he received from his mother. She received
an X with the trait from
her color blind father, but was not color blind herself, because she also
received a normal X from her mother.
However, she passes the trait onto her son in the X chromosome. We thought
red-green color blindness
was a recessive trait carried on the X chromosomes, thus passed from female to
male. We think a female
would have to get two X chromosomes with the trait to be color blind. Some of
the color blindness data
supported this and some did not. We are reading more about it. This was a very
educational and fun project.
Final Report from Pine Ridge Elementary School, Auberry, CA
This report is from Pine Ridge School in Auberry Ca. We are a seventh grade class of 11 students. We really enjoyed this project. We were very surprised to see that some dominant traits like white forelocks are very rare. It was great to be able to use data from all the other schools because our school is so small (104 students) that it is hard to get enough data to be able to draw conclusions from. We divided up the data and hand calculated it with calculators. I plan to now show them how to do it on a spreadsheet.
Final Report from Naples High School, Naples, FL
Was your class able to complete the project as it was
designed? Explain why or why not.
Our classes completed everything as it was designed except for the color
blindness portion. It was confusing to many of us, and our data had to be
disregarded by the project leader.
What was the most important new idea or scientific procedure you learned by
doing this project?
Conducting a survey and analyzing the data were new to many of us.
If someone asked you about the outcome of the project, how would you answer?
We were surprised at the results. We were also surprised how similar our
inherited traits were for those of us from so many different countries and
races.
If you had the chance to do this project again, what would you do differently?
We would learn more about colorblindness before conducting the survey.
If you could speak to the project leader, what suggestions for improvement would
you offer?
It would be helpful to give more resources on colorblindness and Mendel’s
Laws.
Did the results of your project match your expectations? Explain why or why not.
No. We expected the dominant traits to be more prevalent.
What procedures did you use to analyze the large quantity of data?
We used the spreadsheet and summed the columns.
What was the frequency range (highest% minus lowest %) of the dominant traits?
89% for normal vision-20% for white forelock = 69% difference.
Is there a relationship between how often a trait occurred and dominance?
Explain.
There only appeared to be a positive relationship for free ear lobes.
What did you learn about the way red-green color blindness is inherited in
humans?
We learned it does not follow Mendel’s Laws and is more prevalent in males
than females.
Final Report from Millburn Middle School, Millburn, NJ - Bagish
Hello from Millburn Middle School in Millburn, New Jersey,
USA. We enjoyed participating in this project. We felt the activities were easy
to follow and complete. The pictures of the traits really helped, and the
worksheets also helped us collect data. Through this project we had fun
discovering genetic similarities and differences among ourselves and our
parents.
Although we learned many things from the project, one of the most interesting
was the fact that a dominant gene can be very rare. This was especially true of
the white forelock, which no one in the class had. Over the past five years,
only one or two students in this school has had this dominant trait!
For some traits, even with the pictures, we found it difficult to determine what
some of our answers should be. Some students seemed like they could have either
straight or bent pinkies, and one student had one attached and one unattached
ear lobe! It seems that genetics are more complicated than simple Punnett
squares, and we are looking forward to finding out about variations in Science
Class.
Although no one in our class was color blind, it was fun to take the tests and
view them at different screen resolution and number of colors. This possibly
could make a difference on your color blindness results.
We did have some trouble with the Excel Spreadsheet of the collated data. For
some reason, when we tried to apply the sum formula to the columns, we kept
getting 0 for our answers so for now we will have to retype the data (but
we’re still working on it). Perhaps we will find out some new Excel trick in
the process. Because of this we didn’t have time to compare our data with
those from all over the world, but haven’t given up yet .
The thing we liked best was the number of participants and the fact that they
come from so many places. The Internet has made it easier for people from all
over to work together, and we hope that scientists make good use of this idea.
Overall this was a fun and interesting project.
Final Report from Polaris Career Center, Middleburg Heights, OH
The hypothesis was: Dominant traits would occur more
frequently in the general population.
Only two characteristics proved that to be true.
Earlobes: Free ear lobes (dominant trait) vs. Attached ear lobes (recessive
trait)
We came to the conclusion that free earlobes did occur more frequently. Only
about 5 groups had less than 50% for free ear lobes.
Pinky: Straight pinky (recessive trait) vs. Bent pinky (dominant trait)
The majority of the people had the dominant trait of Bent Pinkies.
59% of the schools were had bent pinkies.
41% of the schools were had straight pinkies.
We were not that surprised because it is the dominant trait. Therefore it should
be the majority of the population
On the contrary, we found that recessive traits occurred more frequently in the
population.
Forelock: White forelock (dominant trait) vs. No white forelock (recessive
trait)
The dominant trait was with white forelocks. Although, in this survey, this fact
was not seen. The population seemed to have a large amount of people without
white forelocks, upsetting the normal trend that the white forelock was
dominant. However, this did not really surprise us, for we know no one that has
a white forelock.
Dimples: Dimples (dominant trait) vs. No dimples (recessive trait)
Even though dimples are a dominant trait, only 25% of the schools had a majority
of people with dimples.
Thumbs: Straight thumb (dominant trait) vs. Curved thumb (recessive trait)
The data shows that there are just about an even number of straight and curved
thumbs.
In this survey, the data suggests that traits considered dominant do not
necessarily appear more often in the population.
It has been a good experience to use authentic real time data in this project.
Best wishes,
Polaris Career Center
Final Report from Ruffing
Montessori School, Rocky River, OH
Our class was able to complete the genetic study. The form
given helped us in completing the project in a fair amount of time. We learned
that not everyone has the same traits and families are often very similar in
their phenotypes. We also learned that some traits are much more widely seen in
specific types of people. If someone asked us to describe the outcome of this
project we would say that it was very informative and we would recommend it to
anyone studying the human genome. If we had a chance to do this again we would
ask the students to look for the specific traits in the sexes. If I was to speak
to the leader I would suggest for more variety in the traits that were chosen to
be studied. The outcome of our project did not surprise us in our research. We
learned that red and green color blindness was extremely rare in students.
Thank You, 8th grade class of Ruffing Montessori
Final Report from Jane Addams Business Career High School, Cleveland, OH
1. Our class was able to complete the project. We assigned
group leaders who went around with mirrors for some of the traits, and we
gathered our data. We found color blind charts on line. Our letter of
introduction was written by our group leaders.
2. Dominant traits are not always the phenotype in a population. Our students
learned that sometimes it depends on the distribution of the trait in the
population.
3. Traits can be dominant or recessive, but not necessarily be the genes that
appear in an area. We were trying to see if populations of students all over the
country and the world had recessive traits that showed up continually.
4. We hope to continue this project every year in our class. It is easy,
informative and students get a very good "genetics" education.
5. We have participated for two years, and our understanding of the project and
data are getting better. Possibly, tongue rolling might be added to the traits.
6. Certainly, we expected that dominant traits would dominate. That was not the
case in almost every school taking data.
7. Procedures for analyzing data included taking
percentages of dominant and recessive traits. Students went around the classroom
and counted the traits.
8. Percentage of dominant traits showing up:
free ear lobes--56%; white forelock--11%; dimples--49%; straight thumb--70%;
bent pinky--44%; mid-digit hair--45%; normal vision--100%.
9. There is a relationship between occurrence and the dominant phenotype.
But,that wasn't always shown in our data. White forelocks are dominant, but our
data did not show this. We had almost equal numbers of people with dimples as
those without dimples.
10. We were given a lesson on sex-linked traits. We had no color blind people.
We went on line to get the color blind test. Color blindness is an excellent
example of how sex-linked traits are passed on.
Final Report from East Iredell Middle School, Statesville, NC
1. Was your class able to complete the project as it was
designed? Explain why or why not.
Yes, we collected data about the six traits and combined our information to make
make bar graphs to show the data.
2. What was the most important new idea or scientific procedure you learned by
doing this project?
We learned how people are similar and different based on genetic traits.
3. If someone asked you about the outcome of the project, how would you answer?
We were surprised at the number of people without white forelocks since this is
not a dominant trait. We decided this could be because we observed this
incorrectly or it was just the most common trait of our surveyed population.
4. If you had the chance to do this project again, what would you do
differently?
Add some more traits to collect data about.
5. If you could speak to the project leader, what suggestions for improvement
would you offer?
The website is a bit difficult to navigate to find things. Maybe put a list on
the first page the order to do things in and the link to get to the information
from there.
6. Did the results of your project match your expectations? Explain why or why
not.
Yes, if was interesting to compare to other places, especially outside the U.S.
7. What procedures did you use to analyze the large quantity of data?
We tallied our numbers, calculated percentages, and drew graphs to illustrate
the data we had collected.
Final Report from Bees Creek Primary School, Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia
We
completed the project as it was designed. The survey was easy to administer. It
took us some time to check the data and make sure it was all correct. This is
when we realized the importance of accurate recording of data.
Final Report from McKinley Elementary School, South Holland, Illinois
As a small group of seven students in the gifted program, we were able to
complete most of the project as designed. Our teacher made arrangements to
survey all students in the fifth grade. We visited each of the five homerooms
separately, trying to get our survey done in fifteen minutes so as not to
interrupt the classroom for too long a period of time. We were able to check for
all seven traits, however, we were not able to follow up on the family history
of red-green color blindness. A lack of time and access to the students made
this difficult as is the fact that many of our students don’t live with their
parents. We felt that we had a large sample of students and data to analyze. We
tried to make our sampling fair, that is, we went to all students in the fifth
grade, including one who was mainstreamed from a special program.
We experienced some problems conducting the survey. We divided ourselves into
three teams (2-2-3). Some teams took longer to survey their group of students
and it sometimes got confusing as to who had already been checked for a trait.
Our first survey visit was hard because some team members didn’t cooperate
with their partners and some data was not recorded accurately. We were able to
immediately recall the results and confirm it in the correct place on the survey
sheet. Sometimes students had to leave in the middle of the survey. This is why
our totals don’t always agree within a classroom. Some of our data may not be
accurate because we thought some of the traits were hard to identify as being in
one category or the other. For example, mid digit hair was hard to identify as
well as curved pinkies. Therefore, we didn’t always agree with our team mate(s)
or the other teams as to whether a trait was expressed or not. That would affect
our data.
Our teacher computed the percentages for the collaborative data for each of the
different traits. Our percentages were close to the collaborative percentages in
four of the seven traits. We differed widely for pinky, mid-digit hair and
red-green color blindness. We thought our percentages were closer to accurate
for ‘pinky’ than the collaborative data. We thought maybe the students
didn’t interpret the bent description as we did. The collaborative data for
mid-digit hair seemed much too high for us (about 44% compared to our survey of
8%). We think the students used the hair closer to the knuckles, which is quite
common. Our differences in red-green color blindness (collaborative data 2%, our
data 21%) may be explained by our process problems explained below.
If we did the project again, we would work to get teams who trusted each other
and would cooperate better. We would organize people better in the classroom to
make data collection more accurate. Sometimes students were sitting in rows
making it easy to see their traits, sometimes they were in bunches and things
got confusing. Our teacher suggested that she needed to train teams better and
give them more practice in identifying the traits. We would also ask for more
time from the classroom teachers so that we wouldn’t have to rush so much.
Some of the results of our data matched our expectations, particularly for
obvious traits such as white forelock. Some of the less visible traits fooled
us. We didn’t expect to see as many students with mid digit hair, for example.
Since people in our group didn’t express that trait we didn’t expect to find
many students who did. The same was true for red-green color blindness, although
we wonder if our data was accurate. We wonder, for example, if students heard
someone else tell the answer to the visual puzzle and then maybe decided to give
the wrong answer on purpose. The thing that surprised us the most, however, was
the fact that all the dominant traits didn’t have the highest frequency of
being expressed. Since dominant traits hide recessive traits, we expected the
dominant traits to be expressed.
We learned a lot about scientific procedure and how important accurate data is.
We discovered that when we analyzed our data and some of it didn’t make sense.
The fact that traits can come from past generations and that dominant traits
aren’t always expressed were new ideas that we learned. We computed our
frequency range of the dominant traits and it was 79%.
When we looked at our data for recessive traits we discovered that in the four
traits out of seven in which recessive expressed more frequently than dominant,
sometimes the difference was large (0% -110% for white forelock and 8%- 92% for
mid digit hair) and sometimes it was quite close (48% -52% for curved thumb and
38%-62% for curved pinky).
All in all, we realized there was not a relationship between frequency of a
trait being expressed and dominance. We concluded, according to our data, that
dominant traits aren’t necessarily expressed more frequently. We still
haven’t figured out why, though.
Final Report from Silver
Star Center, Orlando, FL
Our four middle school science teachers teamed with high school classes to
interview students for this project. The experience enabled some of our newer
teachers to meet and work with some of our veteran teachers, and it also allowed
our middle school and high school students to interact in a positive
environment.
All four of the teachers reported being able to complete the project as it was
designed because it was set up so that their students could easily understand
what they were supposed to do. One teacher, however, suggested having only one
student as reporter for the entire class instead of having several students
interview and then have to compile their responses.
Interestingly, the results did not match many expectations because traits
supposed to be considered dominant, e.g. white forelock actually were recessive
in the population sampled. Most students surveyed had free ear lobes, curved
thumbs, and no dimples. The color blindness survey was easy to conduct on
campus, but the teachers were unable to complete the surveys from the homes.
Overall, our data was quite similar with the results reported by other schools.
The trickiest part of the project involved having the students attempt to
compute percentages. Because we are an ESE center, many of our students function
below grade level in both math and reading, and this particular component of the
project presented a challenge to students’ abilities. Teachers had to perform
the majority of the computations, but the students were able to take the
computed percentages and illustrate them in accurate graphs, both hand-drawn and
computer-generated, to produce a pictorial history of their findings.
Our students were delighted to see their results reported on the website, and
they await their report included in the Data Analysis in the Discussion Area.
The collaborative learning environment that this project fostered created a
win-win situation for our students and staff alike. We would welcome another
opportunity to participate in a similar experiment because it really boosted our
students’ self-esteem. Thank you for allowing us to participate.
Final Report from Lattie Coor Elementary School, Avondale, AZ
(Written by student - edited by teacher)
This activity has brought about a lot of interesting conversations in class when
discussing dominant and recessive traits. Many of the discussions centered
around the sex-linked characteristics. Several boys were quite upset when they
learned that male baldness pattern was passed to the sons by the mother and that
if they wanted to see what their hair might look like later in life, they should
look at their mother's father.
We were able to complete the project as it was designed. Our main problem was
that our gifted class only meets every six days and just before the data was
due, we had a two week fall break. Some students didn't get their data collected
in time, or they forgot to bring it to class. We would have had different
numbers with a larger sample. When we do this next year, we will begin as soon
as the project opens. This will allow us more time to get the data collected and
analyzed.
For the most part, the outcome was as we predicted before beginning to collect
data. However, we were surprised that
some of the dominant traits (especially the white forelock)did not occur that
often in our data.
Our classes were very impressed that the project was so well-organized. Mr.
Holzman did a good job and Mrs. Buchholtz appreciated his email reminders.
As I said above, most of the results matched our expectations. As a group we
wonder if some of the characteristics marked as dominant are truly dominant.
Other ways our data might have not been what we expected could be due to the
fact that not all of us who collected the data interpreted it in the same way.
The bent pinky, hair on the mid-digit and straight thumb would be hard to judge
without a picture to compare it to. That could have definately influenced some
of the numbers. We will probably run off copies of all of the samples and a
sample color blindness test for the participants next time.
Because of the time problems we ran into at the last minute, Mrs. Buchholtz
tabulated the data and then we discussed it in class. Next year, because we plan
to start earlier, each class will collect and analyze their own data using
groups to check and recheck the numbers.
The frequency range was 76%. The white forelock was 1.6
% which we rounded up to 2%. The free earlobes were 78%.
When we started the study we thought that if a trait was dominant, it occured
more frequently. Now we understand that just because a trait is dominate doesn't
mean it will occur more frequently but will dominate when it appears.
We learned that for the most part color blindness occurs in men and boys and it
is passed to them from their mothers. If a woman has girls, they can become
carriers of the gene and may pass it on to their children.
When our project began, Mrs. Buchholtz thought that about 25 people would
participate but we actually had 51 take part in the activity. We are quite
excited because Mrs. Buchholtz's daughter is in a graduate program here in
Arizona. Her Master's degree will be in Genetic Counseling and she is planning
to come to our school to speak with us about her work and that career field.
This has been a great experience. Thanks for the opportunity to participate.
The 6th, 7th and 8th grade Project THINK students