People have always been intrigued by questions related to who they are and where they come from. How does a new individual come to be? How do we acquire the characteristics we possess? Are there ways to explain and predict human traits? This webquest is designed to begin to answer some of those questions by looking at the seminal work performed in genetics.

Step 1: Gregor Mendel is considered by many to be the "Father of Genetics". It is his carefully designed and documented experiments with pea plants that have given us many of the fundamental principles of heredity. While our knowledge of genetics has figuratively "exploded" in recent decades, understanding Mendel's research is critical to understanding other genetics concepts. In the first part of this assignment you will briefly examine Mendel's life and his work. Visit the following websites in order to answer the questions below:

http://library.thinkquest.org/19037/idfog.html

http://www.sonic.net/~nbs/projects/anthro201/

1. How did Mendel come to work with pea plants?
2. What about pea plants make them particularly good "subjects" for genetics research?
3. One theory of inheritance popular during Mendel's time was the "blending" theory. How did Mendel's "particulate" theory differ from the "blending" theory.

Step 2: Understanding genetics is almost impossible if you don't know the terminology or how certain symbols are used. In the second part of the assignment you need to learn the following vocabulary and the meaning of several symbols. Do this by visiting the following sites -

http://www.genome.gov/glossary.cfm

http://www.sonic.net/~nbs/projects/anthro201/

http://www.borg.com/~lubehawk/mendel.htm

1. alleles 10. P1
2. heterozygous 11. F1
3. homozygous 12. F2
4. trait 13. uppercase letter, ie. - G
5. chromosome 14. lowercase letter, ie. - g
6. phenotype 15. gamete
7. genotype
8. recessive
9. dominant

Step 3: Mendel's meticulous work with pea plants enabled him to develop several fundamental principles or laws about the inheritance of traits. In this part of the assignment you will examine specific experiments Mendel performed in order to arrive at an understanding of these important conclusions. Do this by visiting the following sites -

http://www.sonic.net/~nbs/projects/anthro201/

http://www.borg.com/~lubehawk/mendel.htm

http://www.dnaftb.org/dnaftb/1/bio/index.html

1. What were the seven traits that Mendel studied?
2. How might the genotype for an individual pea plant, homozygous dominant for axial flowers, be represented? How might a heterozygous individual be represented? What about an individual expressing the recessive trait?
3. How was Mendel able to determine that certain traits were dominant and some were recessive?
4. How did Mendel's work enable him to come up with the Law of Dominance? How did he arrive at the Law of Segregation? How are these two laws related?