When making paper pet families in Science I learned a multitude of things about genetics. First of all, I learnt that when there is a parent with homozygous dominant alleles, the children from that cross will all have the phenotype of the parent with homozygous dominant alleles. Also, I learned that a lot of things don't turn out exactly how probability says they will. My paper pet family only had one male child, and five female children, even though the odds were 50/50. However, the skin color ended up turning out 2/3 blue and 1/3 yellow, even though the odds on that were also 50/50. (There was a heterozygous and a homozygous recessive as parents.)
The paper pet families taught me much about genetics and probability, and I was able to put much of the knowledge that I learnt from it into use in many other situations later in the year. The paper pet families made it easy to understand Punnett Squares, and helped me with other "genetics problems." Although I would have most likely been able to do well without the practical experience of the paper pets, it would have probably taken me longer, and the concept would have been harder to grasp.
The paper pet families taught me much about genetics and probability, and I was able to put much of the knowledge that I learnt from it into use in many other situations later in the year. The paper pet families made it easy to understand Punnett Squares, and helped me with other "genetics problems." Although I would have most likely been able to do well without the practical experience of the paper pets, it would have probably taken me longer, and the concept would have been harder to grasp.
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