CONTENT for Thursday!!

We started the class with the following Daily Question:

In horses, trotter is dominant over pacer. A trotter is mated to a pacer. Over the course of several matings, 5 pacers are produced along with 4 trotters. What were the genotypes of each original parent?

To solve: first - What is the allele for the trotter trait (remember - an allele is a specific version of a gene. If the allele is dominant it is represented with a capital letter, if the allele is recessive it is represented by a lower case letter) In this case then - The allele for Trotter is T

Next: What is the allele for pacer trait? t

What would the genotype of a pacer be? tt (homozygous recessive)

What would the genotype of a trotter be? TT or Tt (homozygous dominant OR heterozygous)

NOW figure out the genotypes of the parents. Well - the pacer Parent HAS to be homozgyous recessive (tt), we know the Trotter has at least one dominant allele, but since they had a pacer offspring that means the trotter HAD to be carrying the pacer recessive allele as well. So..... Genotype of the parents are Tt and tt

Here was how i suggested you write the question in your notes to keep you focused on the question and not your neighbor or what time the bell rings or if you want to use the hall pass to roam around!!

After the daily question - and the "life lesson" in focusing - we reviewed some of the basics of genotype/phenotype terminology and moved into the next section "modeling mendels theory." In this we will be making punnett squares and pedigrees. To introduce it I had you read through the active reading of this section and start to get a feel for what a punnett square is and how it is set up. We will continue with this tomorrow. REMEMBER WE HAVE A DAILY QUESTION QUIZ TOMORROW!!!

Stay strong guys - we are almost at the last 9 weeks!!