Mendelian Genetics

In this presentation, we begin with a background on Gregor Mendel’s groundbreaking work. His work is the foundation for the progress of genetics. Mendel’s work with plants was critical to genetic study (he discovers that genetic material is passed down, generation to generation). We discuss the 7 characteristics of plants that Mendel discovers (flower color, seed color, seed shapes, pod shape, pod color, flower generation, and stem length) that lead to useful data. After Mendel, we know that DNA is our genetic material and can build on the basis of genetics (phenotype/genotype). We use a parent cross, to help us figure out what offspring might look like (Punnett Squares are just predictive). We end with practice problems.