Unit 4 Reflection

This unit was all about sex and why it's so great and interesting! I learned a lot about myself and what helps me learn. In the VARK questionnaire, my visual score was a 7, my aural score was a 9, my reading and writing score was a 2, and my kinesthetic score was a 10. I learned I learn better with hands on activities, and in the case of biology, I learn the best with labs. The Passing on My Genes Mini-Lab and the Coin Sex Lab really helped me understand how new combinations of alleles are made and how they are passed on. My second best learning style is hearing. these are the two things I will use to study for the test. For the kinesthetic part, I will try to find online labs relating to what we learned this unit, specifically on mitosis and miosis. For the hearing part, I will listen to Mr.Orre's vodcasts again and try to take in the information. The themes about this unit was all about the cell cycle and Mendel's laws in genetics. We also learned about genetics and the difference between mitosis and meiosis. My strengths were using Punnett squares to predict what offspring would look like and the autosomal and x linked inheritance. Some things I need to work on are mitosis and meiosis, and how they are different. I learned a lot from the infographic because the infographic made me understand the different topics that were covered in the unit. Pictures and the information brought everything together for me. I am indeed a much better student than I was before this unit started!

Coin Sex Lab

In this lab, we learned how to use punnet squares to predict what our offspring will look like and what traits they will have. The coins served as genes and the two sides of the coins served as alleles. The flipping of the coin modeled meiosis and putting them together modeled recombination, or in other words, sex. The coins also showed how probability of something happening can be different from what actually happens. We did multiple autosomal crosses, where the sex chromosomes are not involved, and one x-linked cross, which is when the sex chromosome are involved. We used two sets of a coin each to represent a monohybrid cross, and two sets of two coins each to represent a dihybrid cross. In a few of our tests we labeled both sides of the coin the same letter to represent a homozygous trait, but in others we labeled the two sides differently to represent a heterozygous trait. When we preformed the di-hybrid cross, we got results that were slightly different than what was expected. The punnet square gave us a phenotype ratio of:

9 Brown Hair, and Brown eyes : 3 Blond Hair, and Brown eyes : 3 Brown Hair, and blue eyes :

1 Blond Hair, and Blue eyes

Our experiment had slightly different results, and gave us the phenotypic ratio of:

8 Brown Hair, and Brown eyes : 4 Blond Hair, and Brown eyes : 2 Brown Hair, and blue eyes :

2 Blond Hair, and Blue eyes

The slight difference between the probability, and what actually happened is due to the fact that probability is not always what is going to happen. It is possible to cross two heterozygotes, and get two recessive alleles in all ten offspring just like you can flip a coin ten times and get heads every time. This lab demonstrated the limits of probability. Probability can give you odds on what can happen, but until the event occurs there is no guarantee it will happen. Relating back to the coin, the probability of getting heads two times in a row is a 25% chance, but until you flip the coin twice you can't know if you will get two heads.

This lab relates to me because if/when I have children, then I can use probability to predict what they might be like, but I have no way to know for sure what traits they will have, until they are born.what traits they might have gotten until they are actually born.

Genetics Infographic

Because this infographic is too small, click for a larger version here