Human Genetics

Spring 2003
Final Reports

Final Report from Emma C. Attales Middle School 
Final Report from Montwood High School, El Paso, Texas
Final Report from Marinette Middle School, Marinette, WI
Final Report from Central Memorial High School Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Final Report from Little Miami H.S., Morrow, OH
Final Report from Overseas Family School Singapore 8.2
Final Report from Overseas Family School Singapore 8.3
Final Report from E.F.Rittmueller Middle School, Frankenmuth, Michigan
Final Report from Vailsburg Middle School, Newark, NJ
Final Report from Avon Avenue School of Science and Technology, Newark, NJ
Final Report from ADM Middle School, Adel, Iowa
Final Report from St Andrew's School, Johannesburg, South Africa
Final Report from M.C. Perry High School, Iwakuni, Japan
Final Report from Sun Canyon Elementary School, Phoenix, Arizona
Final Report from Detroit Country Day Middle School, Beverly Hills, MI
Final Report from Hellgate Middle School Missoula, Montana USA
Final Report from Passaic Valley High School, Little Falls, NJ
Final Report from Demarest Middle School, Demarest, NJ

Emma C. Attales Middle School, Absecon, New Jersey

The Emma C. Attales Middle School is located in Absecon, New Jersey. It is located in Atlantic County, about 8 miles outside of Atlantic City. Our coordinates are 39N and 74W. Our grade 7 science classes enjoyed participating in the Human Genetics Project. We found it to be rewarding as well as frustrating to be working with such a large amount of data for the first time. We learned what it would be like to conduct the type of research that scientists do, as well as how they must be patient and organized when tabulating and analyzing the data in order to come up with a conclusion. In order to deal with the large quantity of data, each of the 5 science classes was divided into groups that were assigned a particular trait to tabulate and analyze. This way, each trait was tabulated 5 times by 5 different groups of students. The results of these tabulations were then distributed to the students who further analyzed them.

Originally, we expected that the dominant trait would be the one that "showed up" most often. After careful analysis of the data, we found that this was not the case.
We concluded that, depending on the individual sample, the dominant trait was not always the one that was inherited by most people. It seemed that,where there was a larger sample of data collected from a particular school, the dominant trait was found more often. Overall, however, there was not a relationship between how often the trait occurred and dominance. The dominant trait was inherited as often as the recessive trait.

We also learned that red-green color blindness is more common in males than in females. We found that both parents do not have to pass on the trait to the offspring for it to be present in the male as was often the case with the females. Red-green color blindness is inherited differently than the other traits.

Montwood High School, El Paso, Texas

Our class completed the project, but had difficulty working with the excel worksheets on the Mac. We had to download the PC version on the lone PC in the classroom, then send it to the Macs to get it to work right.
We found that the dominant trait is not always the most common as evident in the White forelock, and dimple Data, and that for some traits, instead of the expected 2:1 ratio, we saw a 1:1 ratio(dom:rec).
We did use the Hardy - Weinberg equation to get the phenotypic frequencies, but ran out of ime to do a Chi-squared analysis.
The Data brought up some interesting questions, such as:
1. Why are dominant phenotypes such as dimples and white forelocks less frequently observed than the recessive?
2. How would the data differ if the rules for obtaining a random sample were folowed?

We did not look at the colorblindness data, since we did not test for that trait.

Marinette Middle School, Marinette, Wisconsin

As students, we divided one class into seven survey teams. The survey teams were responsible for surveying the members of our team of students for each of the seven human genetic traits. Our teacher instructed us to look carefully at the students and look for the expressed dominant or recessive traits. But, there were some students where the mid-digit hair, pinky's, and thumbs were so close that there will be a small margin of error. The easiest trait to survey was the colorblindness test. Even though we had to do this twice, Mr. Despins had two computer stations set up in the room taht all the students easily rotated through to test their vision.
When we finished the survey and added the total for our team of students we decided to look at our results by comparing the ratio of dominant to recessive traits by simplifying the actual results like Mendel did with his pea data. The results for our team were as follows:

Ear Lobes: 2 dominant with: 1recessive without
White Forelock: 1 dominant with: 10 recessive without
Dimples: 2 dominant with: 1 recessive without
Thumb: 2 dominant straight: 1 recessive curved
Pinky: 1 dominant bent: 2 recessive straight
Mid-digit hair: 1 dominant with : 1 recessive without
Red Green colorblind: 23 normal : 1 colorblind

Final Data Analysis

We then compared the results of our team of students(97 population) with all the reporting students from around the world(16,150 population the largest reported for the seven traits). We decided to compare the ratios and percentages of dominant and recessive traits for each of the seven traits that were surveyed. If the traits were single traits not linked or multiple gene traits we predicted that the ratio of dominant to recessive would be 3:1. None were, so there wasn't a large enough sample or the traits may have be linked to other inherited factors. We noticed some errors in the numbers that the total was not the sum of the dominant and recessive traits, but Our teacher told us to use the data as printed and to not round off any of the calculations to simplify things.

HOW DID WE COMPARE ?

Earlobes: US 66% free, 34% attached 2:1
WORLD 65% free, 35% attached 2:1

Our difference was 1% so we compared the most favorably to the world surveyed.

White Forelock:
US 9% with: 91% without 1:10
WORLD 6% with: 93% without 1:14
We had 3% more of our students with a white forelock and a greater ratio that the world.

Dimples: US 67% with: 33% without 2:1
World 42% with: 57% without 1:1
Both our teams percentage and ratio was higher for this trait than the worlds.

Thumb: US 67% straight: 33% curved 2:1
WORLD 53% straight: 46% curved 1:1
We had a higher ratio of straight thumbs compared to the world.
Pinky: US 33% bent: 67% straight 1:2
WORLD 53% bent: 46% straight 1:1
This was the trait that we differed from the world by the greatest amount 20% less in the dominant trait.
Mid-digit Hair:
US 57% with: 43% without 1:1
WORLD 42% with: 57% without 1:1
Our ratios were the same but there was a difference in the percentages.
Colorblindness:
US 96% normal: 4% colorblind 23:1
WORLD 96% normal: 3% colorblind 23:1
Like the earlobes we are very favorably similar to the world.

It was very interesting to see all the areas of the world surveyed. The map in our room we labelled with flags to see where the other students were from. We were the only ones from our state and it would have been nice to see how we compare to other "cheeseheads". Thank you for a nice project. It helped us to understand our science book chapter on genetics and showed us how statistics can really be different unless you look at a large number of example.

AAA Team and Mr. Despins

Central Memorial High School Calgary, Alberta, Canada

Our class was not only able to complete the project as designed, but we had lots of fun doing it as well. Some volunteers went to different classes where we conducted the survey, giving our class large numbers to work with. We learned that some traits that were thought to be dominant are now less common than the recessive traits. Some slight problems we faced were in the analyzing of the pinky and the thumb. At times, it was difficult to tell if they were straight or curved for a number of reasons. Our school has a relatively high athletic population; and with sports comes injuries. Using myself as an example, my pinkies are very bent due to breaking them a number of times. I do not remember if my pinkies were originally bent from birth or not. Other individuals had similar difficulties. What constitutes a hitchhikers thumb? To what degree does the thumb have to be bent to be classified as straight or hitchhikers? Our groups did experience some problems with this, therefore there could have been some errors in interpretation.
Some of the traits show the majority of individuals with the dominant trait; however, there are a number of traits that the majority shows the recessive trait. It is most common in white forelocks, dimples, and mid-digit hair to have the recessive trait. Some populations show much different ratios of dominant:recessive traits. For example, of all data collected from Texas, they had a ratio of 1:1.3 for dominant:recessive white forelocks (with a total of 210 dominant and 273 recessive) as compared to the group data of 1:14.2. This is a huge difference. Although the white forelock is still less common than without, the ratio is much closer to what is expected through Mendelian genetics.
Ear Lobes show a completely different outcome. The ratio of dominant:recessive is much closer to the expected ratio. This suggests that a simple genotype codes for the traits. For example, the dominant allele may be 'F' for free and 'f' for attached. If so, the dominant traits would have either genotype 'FF' or 'Ff'. The recessive trait would then have a genotype of 'ff'. This may explain why the margin of error -from expected ratios- for this specific trait is much less than that of the other traits. Our class had a very unique individual that we could not include in the ear lobes data because one of his lobes was attached and the other was free.
Our class had a frequency range for dominant traits of 58.17% not including that of red-green colorblindness. To analyze all of our class data, and to compare it with the group data, we used Excel spreadsheets. Even with the help of spreadsheets, it is still difficult to understand why the group has showed these numbers. One can still assume –even after analyzing data- that dominance has a direct relationship with how often a trait occurs. Genetically, the dominant allele will ‘cancel’ the recessive allele, giving the ‘dominant’ phenotype a higher expected rate. However, there is the idea of the Survival of the Fittest. If the theory is accurate, a population can eventually delete one trait from its genome in order to maintain a more fit population. Perhaps what was dominant in the past is no longer dominant today.
Red-green colorblindness seems to be less common as time progresses. It would be very interesting to see what professionals might have to say about it. The whole group data shows that red-green color-blindness is much more common in males ( 91.5% of colorblind survey data) than in females (8.5% of colorblind survey data).The data suggests that, through generations, the code for red-green colorblindness gets less common and does appear to be sex-linked. This makes sense if you understand that the frequency of the generation before directly influences the present generation. If less people are colorblind, you will have fewer babies born colorblind and these fewer babies will have fewer colorblind children themselves.
Our school hopes to take part in this project in the future as we had lots of fun and had the experience of learning some interesting facts first hand!

Little Miami H.S., Morrow, OH

Biology 1 class, grade 10

 Responses to questions

 1. Our class completed the project as it was
 designed. We did not have  time to do the additional challenges. We are just now getting to population dynamics and H-W equilibrium.

 2. I think the most important thing students learned was how difficult it is to analyze large amounts of data. They also
 gained an appreciation for the validity of data taken in large numbers. We
 discussed the concept of sample size as an important notion in scientific research.

 3. The outcome of the project was much as we expected. Most of the traits that we found to be dominant in our own classroom, were also dominant in the population sampled. However, students were interested to
 find that not all populations sampled had the same ratios for dominant and recessive traits.

 4. I would just try to do more with the analysis. We had a difficult time scheduling time in the computer lab. I would have like to have graphed some more of the data to make it easier to compare. There were
 so many groups to consider.

 5. The only thing we had trouble with was the summary of the final data. It was just so large, students had trouble following from one page to the next.

 6. See number 3.

 7. We attempted to make some graphs of some of the data and put them on overhead transparencies to look at as a class. We
 also compared groups geographically and in the same age bracket.

 8. I do not have this information with me for the frequency range.

 9. Our students concluded that their was usually a relationship between how often a trait occurred and dominance, though not
 always as they expected. Some students thought that a dominant trait would always occur more often.

 10. The students noted that red-green colorblindness was a sex-linked trait. They understood that for this reason it would
 occur much more often in males than in females.

Overseas Family School Singapore 8.2

Our class 8.2 was involved in this project as other classes too. We were able to do the project as it was designed because we were able to get the information for the project and give it to the web site, get all the information of other schools etc.
During the project the things that our group learned is about genetics and about dominant and recessive traits. We also learned that dominant traits are stronger than recessive traits. We learned about how genes can be passed on. We also learned about genotypes.
If we had to do the project again the thing that we would differently is that we would not survey people that are in the same family. This is because there is a high possibility that they will have the same genes and then we would not be able to get a variety of results.
The results of the project did come out the way we expected because mostly people have got the gene for the dominant trait this is because it is stronger. Because of the great amount of data we thought that it was going to be difficult to analyze the data. But we found out a tool in the spreadsheet program which is called SUM and that tool sums up the data in the column and because of this tool we were able to do the analyzing in a faster manner.
I think that overall the project turned out pretty well because we were able to complete all the things. We also found the project a new and fun experience. If we were able to speak to the leader of the project then to improve the project we would ask him to maybe have some more traits which they knew would be recessive because we think that that would make the project more interesting.

Overseas Family School Singapore 8.3

On Monday we were given a part of our project where we had to survey everyone in our class about the seven traits. We have successfully finished our project. However we were not given enough time to work on it during our class time. This is because when we had been given the project our whole school was closed down due to the SARS outbreak, then the coming week we had our one week Easter holiday. We were able to do our work from home but not completely. Then again we still finished it successfully.
By doing this very amazing and fun project, I practically learnt why DNA and genetics are important and how they can be used to find out specific information about humans, animals, plants, etc…I also learnt how people are different from others, because they consist of something that my body does not have. I also found out which traits are dominant and which are recessive.
Well I would say that the project was really fun, because I am really interested in knowing how people are different from others and why. The project was very easy and there were no problems. It was straight forward and simple. I would like to do something like this again. I would research more people and compare more different kinds of genetics and I would also ask them about their families genes and see how they all are the same, and different.
If I could meet the project leader, I don’t think I would really like to improve anything, maybe by just adding more detailed things like checking their chromosomes.
We were expecting that free earlobes would be more dominant, and our result was right. Most of the students in my class had free earlobes. Yes there is a relationship between how often a trait occurred and dominance. The Sex chromosomes are not only responsible for determining the sex of offspring; they also have genes for many non sexual traits. Genes carried on either of these sex chromosomes are said to be sex- linked. Many sex-linked genes are carried on the X chromosome; this is because in humans the X chromosome is much larger than the Y chromosome and carries many genes that are not present on the Y chromosome. A gene that is carried on the X chromosome but not the Y chromosome will always be displayed in the male offspring even if it is recessive as there is no equivalent allele on the Y chromosome to offer dominance.
Red-green colour vision deficiencies are inherited in a sex-linked recessive manner. The genes responsible for this form of deficiency are found on the X chromosome and not the Y chromosome. Genes coding for normal colour vision are dominant over the genes resulting in red-green deficiencies, this gives rise to various genetic possibilities.

E.F.Rittmueller Middle School, Frankenmuth, Michigan

Introduction:
The purpose of this lab is to figure out if the dominant trait or the recessive trait shows up more in a person's features. A gene is a unit of heredity that determines your features or traits. A dominant trait is the gene that covers up the recessive trait if both genes are present. A recessive trait shows up in a person's features only if both recessive genes are present. If we survey a large number of people about their traits, then the dominant trait will show up more than the recessive one. By surveying these people, we will be able to determine if the dominant trait shows up more often than the recessive trait.

Procedures:
1. Go to the website and read the directions.
2. Make a hypothesis.
3. Write a letter of introduction and submit it to the website.
4. Survey everyone in our school on the following traits: earlobes, white forelock, dimples, thumb, pinky finger and mid-digit hair.
5. Upload our data to the website.
6. Download data from all schools and analyze it.
7. Write final reports.

Data/Results:
see attachment

Discussions:
Possible sources for error are that the people taking the survey did not know the traits and how to define the one they have. Human error could have been made somewhere from all the schools in adding up the totals. This experiment could be improved by surveying a larger number of people. We should also take a more evenly distributed sample, trying to cover all continents of the globe.

Conclusions:
The data does not support the hypothesis because out of the six traits the dominant trait occurred more often three times. These values are significant because they show that the hyothesis was wrong and that the dominant trait does not always show up more often.

Vailsburg Middle School, Newark, NJ

I. Purpose
Here in Vailsburg Middle School, Ms. Lee and Ms. Miller’s classes are working on a project. We’re surveying people to see how many individuals have the dominant genes and how many individuals have recessive genes. We want to know if there’s a connection between dominance and frequency. We’re surveying two classes from this school. To do this project we are going to use the Internet. The two classes posted their data in a website and that’s where we are going to get our information.

II. Hypothesis
For my hypothesis, I predicted that the dominant genes would occur more often because of their name. It sounds like a more demanding and stronger word. The word dominant means most powerful, so I thought that they would rule over the recessive gene and would appear more often. Therefore the dominant genes are important so you would need them the most so they would appear more often.

III. Experiment
My class was able to complete the project thoroughly and accurately as it was designed because we researched on the Internet and had to follow an outline. We were given the correct tools for the project. We used the calculator to analyze the quantity of data. The purpose, the hypothesis, and the conclusion were ideas from the scientific method that were important. They were important because when you do a project you must set your goal/purpose so you know what you are doing. The hypothesis is important because when you hypothesize you are making a guess and at the end of the experiment you want to know if you guessed right or wrong. The conclusion is also important because at the end of your experiment you get to sum up the whole experiment in your conclusion. You get to see how much you have accomplished.

IV. Analysis
On our survey 85% had free earlobes and 15% had attached earlobes. The attached earlobes are the recessive traits and the free earlobes are the dominant traits. All dominant traits did not have a higher percentage even though most does. 39% of the people has a straight thumb and 61% had a bent thumb. In another school they had a higher percentage of people with free earlobes just like us. We didn’t have any one with white fore locks but they only had 2. This probably means that there aren’t a lot of people with white fore lock in this world. In the other school’s data they had more people with straight thumbs and we didn’t. This means that we really can’t be sure about whether more people have straight thumb than bent until we survey more people. In my school the highest frequency for the dominant trait was 84% and the lowest was 0%.

V. Conclusion
After the project was finished, I found out that my hypothesis was incorrect. There is no relationship between dominant traits and their frequency. The frequency of a dominant gene seems to be random. The same is for the recessive traits. It doesn’t matter if a trait is dominant or not. It occurs based on the genes of a parent who might have dominant genes as well as recessive. The only reason that the dominant gene is called dominant is because if a parent has1 dominant gene for a straight thumb and 1 recessive gene for a curved thumb, the result will be a straight thumb. For a curved thumb to be the trait, the parent must have 2 recessive genes. Therefore the gene for the straight thumb is called dominant. It’s more powerful than the other gene. Even though it’s more powerful, it doesn’t mean it’s more frequent.

Avon Avenue School of Science and Technology, Newark, NJ

I think my class was able to complete the project as it was designed to our best ability. We all put in a lot of hard work to complete this project. Our goal was to do only the 22 students in our class, but we ended up doing 106 people in Avon Avenue School. The most important thing I learned by doing this project was how to identify color blindness, forelocks, etc. If someone asked me about the outcome of the project I would have to say that we did a great job and a lot of people found out things about them that they didn’t even know.
If I had a chance to do this project again, I probably wouldn’t change anything. If I could speak to the project leader, I would suggest that he/she post more pictures of students’ traits. In conclusion, we feel that the human genetic project was very informative project and a crowd “pleaser” amongst the students at Avon Avenue School.

ADM Middle School, Adel, Iowa

We really enjoyed doing this project, but we had a hard time trying to make sure our data was correct. When we counted the surveys we went through over 100 of them because about three times because our count was off. We can see how important it is to make sure everything is correct.
We did check on some other traits in our immediate class. We surveyed our class and our families using the PTC tasting and eye colors. That was fun seeing who could taste something and who couldn't.
We spent time looking at the results from other schools. We were surprised at some of the findings from our school, but when we went to other school's results, we found some other things interesting. The white forelock is a dominant trait, but we were surprised to find we had only one person, and another school had a lot. Then we began wondering if some of the traits had to do with ethnic background.
Thank you for sponsoring this project! We really enjoyed it and started us thinking about genetics and next year we are thinking about studying and finding out about genetically altered food.

St Andrew's School, Johannesburg, South Africa

My three grade 9 classes completed the survey as set out, we didn't do the colour-blindness tests in our groups. We found the survey easy and not too time consuming to do. My students were surprised to find that both in their own results and in those of other schools the dominant trait was not always the most frequent.
We analysed the data from schools in 5 different countries - South Africa, Malaysia, Canada, USA and Japan - and noted that in most cases the frequency of the genes were similar. My students also attributed differences in our own results ot a smaller sample size (76 students) as opposed to some schools with results from 770 students.
I will repeat this project next year and will add a statistical component using team teaching with the Maths and Computer departments.
Thank you for your hard work
Cheryl Savage

M.C. Perry High School, Iwakuni, Japan

Biology, Grade 10, Iwakuni, Japan

Our class completed the project with the exception of the color blindness test. We are located overseas in Japan and therefore we are unable to survey family members back in the States. The most important new idea we learned is that it is very important to submit accurate data, and not just make up data so your project won't be late. Our teacher emphasized this point, and we monitored everyone to make sure they really did do the survey accurately. If we could do the project again, we would allot more time to do the surveys because some students had a hard time finding enough people that hadn't already been surveyed as we neared the due date. We liked doing the project and it was fun to compare our answers to those of other schools.

Sun Canyon Elementary School, Phoenix, Arizona

Our project was a combined effort from three fifth grade classes and one fourth grade class. We found it easy to find dominate and recessive traits. Students worked in pairs to find these traits. After all the traits were tallied, it was a matter of minutes before our findings were published on the web. All the students were excited to see the results. We were surprised that as a school we had a lot of recessive traits.
After entering in the data we graphed our data and compared it to our schools data. This made the similarities and differences more apparent. We noticed a correlation between how often a trait occurs and if it is dominate or recessive.
There are two important things we learned by participating in the collaborative project. We learned how alike and different we are all around the world. Student learned how to enter in data and what collaborative data is.
The outcome of our project was a positive one. It was high interest and very educational project. We look forward in participating in more collaborative products in the future. We would not change anything and we have no suggestions for improvement. It was a great experience for all of us.

Sincerely,
Mr. Doyle 5th grade Ms. Clark 5th grade
Ms. Johnston 5th grade
Mr. Holzemer 4th grade

Detroit Country Day Middle School, Beverly Hills, MI

We at Detroit Country Day School recently completed an analysis of the data. We chose 5 schools at random per group of students. They then calculated the percentages of people who had each trait, and then used Excel to make a graph of the results.

We were surprised that some of the dominant traits, such as white forelock and dimples, were less common than the recessive trait. We concluded that the gene for the recessive trait is more common in the population. Thus, the chances for getting 2 of the recessive genes was actually higher than the chance of getting 1 dominant gene for these traits.

We enjoyed seeing the data from other schools, especially those outside of our country. Last year we did not analyze and graph the results, and doing so helped us to see how these traits are spread throughout the population. Doing the project also helped support our math skills such as calculating percentages and making graphs.

Hellgate Middle School Missoula, Montana USA

Our teacher sent the project data to our lab station computers, so that we could see the cumulative results.  We had a question sheet, which our group completed to help us interpret the data.  This report is a compilation of student answers and a summary of class discussion.

 At first we hypothesized that the dominant trait would be more frequent than the recessive.  We thought most human are hybrids rather than pure for a trait.  When hybrids mate, the phenotype percentages are 75% dominant and 25% recessive.

 We made a separate spreadsheet and calculated percentages for each dominant trait, and this is what we found out:

Free ear lobes            65%

White Forelock                7%

Dimples                           41%

Straight thumb                    53%

Pinky bent                       55%

Mid-digit hair              42%

 From this data we did not find any relationships between recessive and dominant traits, because the percentages showed a variety of numbers not relating to one another.  The traits appear random without a specific pattern.  Some of the reasons why this may be, came out in class discussion.  First, some traits, like white forelock, only a few of us have ever even seen.  So we thought this trait may be rare, even though it is dominant.  Humans don't mate randomly, but make choices and maybe this could affect the frequency of a random trait.  And last, we thought it was hard to tell if you actually had some of the dominant traits, so there could be a lot of errors in reporting. 

 We also looked at the color-blind data and found that males had a much higher percentage of the trait.  Our teacher told us how sex is inherited, and we concluded that the color-blind gene is found on the X chromosome.  Because the Y chromosome is smaller the color-blind gene is "exposed," and can be expressed.  We found out by doing more Punnett Squares that females can also be color blind, but they must be pure for the gene.

 We liked participating in this project and learning about other schools world wide.  We are sending one class picture along also.  

Passaic Valley High School, Little Falls, NJ

Our classes (Bio II) completed this project with some slight revisions to the design. We used ÒSearch For The Dominant TraitÓ as the basis of our science presentation to our districtÕs eighth grade students: we surveyed each eighth grade class for each of the traits BUT added the traits of PTC tasting and eye color to generate a bit more interest (PTC tasting really gets the students involved!) The survey was followed by DNA extraction performed using the eighth gradersÕ saliva. The presentations were more successful than we had imagined: the survey actively involved the students- they werenÕt just sitting passively listening to a lecture. It (the survey) was a good motivating activity for the DNA extraction demonstration.
We, the Bio II classes at PVHS, went on to use our gathered data when studying the Hardy-Weinberg Principle. We determined the allele frequency for each trait using this ÒREALTIMEÓ data instead of given textbook input. Using our data made this rather difficult mathematical model more relevant to us and therefore, a bit easier to understand. We were surprised to find the rather high frequency of some of the recessive alleles- now realizing they were ÒhiddenÓ in the heterozygous condition. We were also surprised that the frequency of the dominant trait for white forelock is quite low. Perhaps, it is has something to do with the age of the individual and those surveyed were too young to display it.
We enjoyed our participation in the ÒSearchÓ and thank Stevens for encouraging involvement in science.  

Demarest Middle School, Demarest, NJ

Demarest's Final Thoughts

Many students initially felt more people would show the dominant form of each trait. This proved not to be true for our results or those posted from the other participants.

A majority of the other schools also showed the same results for the same traits. For example, most of our students and others in the survey showed the dominant form of the trait for ear lobe structure, but the recessive form for white forelock. This alone makes the students wonder why.

There was a bigger discrepancy between the results for white forelock (having it or not) than the other traits.

Based on the info. concerning white forelock, the students wondered if climate had any impact on prevalence of the trait or not since they seemed to believe it was more frequent in warmer climates. They also wondered the impact on ancestral genetics and migration patterns for the prominence of this trait.

Red-green colorblindness seemed pretty rare for everyone. The question of the number of males and females involved in the research was brought up since it is a sex-linked trait.

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