Human Genetics

Fall 1999
   Student Final Reports

Final Report from Long Branch High School, Long Branch, New  Jersey, USA
Final Report from Bolivar Richburg Central School, Bolivar, New York, USA
Final Report from Millburn Middle School, Millburn, New Jersey, USA
Final Report from Meadow Lane Elementary School, Lemoore, California, USA
Final Report from Knox Middle School, Knox, Indiana, USA
Final Report from Plymouth South Middle School, Plymouth, Massachusetts, USA
Final Report from A.D.M. Middle School, Adel, Iowa, USA
Final Report from Daniels Middle School, Raleigh, North Carolina, USA
 

Final Report from Long Branch High School, Long Branch, New Jersey, USA

Our class is still in the process of completing the project as it was designed. One of the most important ideas that we learned is that a dominant trait does not
necessarily have to be the most observed in a population. For example, white forelock is a dominant trait yet we only observed one person out of 364 surveyed,
with this trait.

If we had the chance to do this project again, we would start it earlier.We are still in the process of analyzing the data, therefore, we cannot state an outcome as of
yet.

We expect to find the classical 3:1 ratio observed by Mendel.

In order to analyze this large quantity of data, we are in the process of working in collaborative groups and constructing graphs on excel that will assist us in this
endeavor.

Final Report from Bolivar Richburg Central School, Bolivar, New York, USA

Hello from Bolivar Richburg Central School! We were very successful in our observations of dominant and recessive traits. We learned how to tell if people were
colorblind. We found that our information was not always consistent with what the dominant trait was expected to be. With only 6 students, we were pleased to be
able to interview 145 people within the school. Colorblindness had the lowest frequency (4 out of 145), and dimples came out with almost 50% recessive and 50%
dominant. It was a fun project to participate in as we were able to go into other classes to investigate the traits. Other teachers were very supportive as well. If we
were able to do this project again, we would like to investigate more people, more traits, and different races of people (our community is not very diverse). Ben
wants to remind you to watch the Ricky Martin live concert Friday, Nov. 26, at 8 pm (est) on CBS.

Final Report from Millburn Middle School, Millburn, New Jersey, USA

We learned a lot of things from this project, some about genetics in general and others about scientific research. We learned about the study of genetics, and how we
are linked in this way from one generation to another. Some of us checked our parents traits to determine where our own characteristics came from. We learned
about dominant and recessive genes and how Punnett squares can predict the percentage of offspring characteristics. Interestingly enough, brown eyed parents can
have blue eyed children, and just because a gene is dominant does not mean it is most common. For instance, very few of us had a white forelock, yet is a dominant
gene. We think this is because this gene is very rare. We also found that you can be color blind without ever knowing it!

Research, in this case did not seem to be an exact science. Some of the traits such as the bent and straight thumbs seemed to have many variations on the theme and
often we weren’t quite sure which was which. In some cases, this may have skewed the results. In addition, although many of us had fun taking the color blind tests,
some of us are now wondering whether or not you can be color blind in just a few areas. Overall it seems that scientific research can sometimes lead to more
questions than it does answers.

Final Report from Meadow Lane Elementary School, Lemoore, California, USA

We enjoyed this project. We thought it was interesting and some of the students would like to learn more. Our results didn't always match the norm. We think
maybe we needed more information about some of the traits in order to be more accurate in deciding if someone had that trait. For example, it was difficult to
determine if people had mid-digit hair. We thought using a magnifying glass might have helped. Some students thought it was difficult to determine if pinkies were
bent or straight. Perhaps better examples would have helped. It was also difficult to determine the white forelock because some kids had really blond hair. We also
found some students had two different pinkies or two different earlobes. We had a good discussion as to why that might have occured. As a class we are going to
put our own data on to a spreadsheet so we can show our school what we found. Thank you for providing us with an interesting project.

Final Report from Knox Middle School, Knox, Indiana, USA

Our class of 9 students, completed our Genetics project. We found out that one of our students were colorblind and on most of the other traits, the class was mostly
dominant. We surveyed 5 other E.R. classes along with our class. Altogether there were 41 students surveyed and it turned out that there were a lot of students that
were colorblind. Now that we have done this project, all of us understand the life of genetics a little bit better. We had a lot of fun doing this activity with our
classmates. It helped us get to know other students in the 6th grade that we didn’t know and we got to learn more about the different traits everyone has. All of the
students in my E.R. class are white, including me. Out of the 9 students, 4 are male and 5 are girls. When we found out that some of the students were colorblind, we
had them take home a slip to see if their parents, brothers or sisters, or grandparents were colorblind. When we got the responses back, some of the parents were
colorblind and some of the brothers and sisters were to, but some didn’t know about their grandparents.

Final Report from Plymouth South Middle School, Plymouth, Massachusetts, USA

My students all completed the survey as a class assignment. I designed a survey sheet which allowed them to answer with one letter whether or not they had each of
the inherited traits in your survey. The students worked in pairs to determine whether they had a trait or not. In some cases I had to be the final judge. Then, in Xcel I
designed a spread sheet so the data could be entered easily. After printing it out I had students count the number of people.

We did have some questions. White forelocks confused us the most because no one had really "white" hairs, but many had very blond hair at their temples. I was
looking for something like Mrs. Munster had in the old TV show! In that case no one of the 129 had it.

Two students were surprised to find they had one ear lobe attached and the other free! We had nowhere to enter that on the survey form. The same applied to
thumbs and pinkies; 1 student had 2 different thumbs and 2 had different pinkies.

One student is red-green color blind. He knows that he inherited through his mother. Her father did not have it, but an uncle did and it came from his father (my
student's great-grandfather)

Our biggest question is who said dimples are dominant? We have a few students who have them and none of their parents did.

We also decided we were too small a pool of people to get entirely accurate percentages.

The students really enjoyed this project and are looking forward to seeing the results of all the other schools.

Final Report from A.D.M. Middle School, Adel, Iowa, USA

We have learned a lot from this project. We were surprised by some of the results. In some catagories, especially the white forelock, the dominant wasn't always the
most common. We didn't know you inherited a bent or straight pinky. One student in our class knew it, beacause his pinkies are bent and he knew that during
baseball it makes it hard to hold the bat.Most of us had never paid any attention to our ear lobes as to wether they were attached.

Ou highest percentage was in the free earlobes, it was 78%. The lowest was color blindness at 13%.

The white forelock was hard to tell. Some of us thought we had one and the teacher said no. We also had trouble when determining if a pinky was bent or not.
Some were easy to tell but some students wanted to count the tip of the thumb as bent.

We think including the color of your eyes would be easy to do. From doing this project it prompted many of us to go home and talk to our parents about some of
the traits we inherited. It also got our parents to thinking about where they got some of their traits.

Final Report from Daniels Middle School, Raleigh, North Carolina, USA

Our class of nine students completed the survey and learned a lot. One student found out he was color blind. We followed up with a visit to the school nurse. We did
not complete the second survey on colorblind family members as this class has a hard time remembering to complete homework assignments. The most important
thing we learned in this project was there are so many traits we have that we did not realize were inherited. We also realize due to the racial make up of our class
and the small sample of the population that we are probably not a representative sample. There are nine members of the class-- 8 are male and one is female. Six are
African American, two are white, and one is Asian American. We found that out of six traits, the majority of our class had four recessive tratis. We also had one trait
in which we were one hundred percent recessive-- the white forelock. The majority of the class had the dominant traits of free ear lobes and the straight pinky. The
highest percentage for a dominant trait was 89% and the lowest was 0%. Our class does not appear to be reflective of dominant traits in the general population. We
learned that the diverse mix of our small sample helped us learn about a variety of inherited traits and how we are alike and different.

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