Transcript File
Collecting Data For Inherited
Characteristics
D. Crowley, 2007
Sunday, April 10, 2016
Collecting Data For Inherited
Characteristics
To be able to collect, and use data, about inherited
characteristics
Inherited Or Not?
Below is a picture of a family, plus a table of features (the girls are identical
twins)
The features include some which are inherited, and others which are strongly
affected by the environment
Mum
Dad
Jane
Becky
Eye colour
Brown
Brown
Blue
Blue
Freckles
Few
Many
Few
Few
Weight (kg)
64
80
40
55
Height (cm)
168
180
148
148
Shoe size
5
9
5
5
Hair colour
Black
Black
Blonde
Blonde
Hair texture
Curly
Straight
Curly
Curly
Hair length
Long
Short
Short
Short
Inherited Or Not?
Produce two lists - one containing all the inherited features, and one containing
all the environmental features
Inherited
Environmental
Mum
Dad
Jane
Becky
Eye colour
Brown
Brown
Blue
Blue
Freckles
Few
Many
Few
Few
Weight (kg)
64
80
40
55
Height (cm)
168
180
148
148
Shoe size
5
9
5
5
Hair colour
Black
Black
Blonde
Blonde
Hair texture
Curly
Straight
Curly
Curly
Hair length
Long
Short
Short
Short
eye colour; freckles; height; shoe size; hair colour; hair texture
weight; length of hair
Collecting Data
How could you design an experiment to find out what if a
characteristic is inherited?
What would you need to know?
Key information to collect is data from yourself as well as from
your biological parents
It is also important to get a large amount of data for accuracy
Collecting Data
Your task is to collect enough data which you can then analyse, and
tabulate to give you an indication of whether a characteristic is inherited
or not
You need to identify a few characteristics to tabulate to answer this
question
Possible characteristics to collect data on:
Eye colour
Hair colour
Tongue roller
Height
Results
Using the table, collect data from within the class about inherited
features. Once you have done this, analyse the data and answer the
questions (add the data to the class results)!
Draw a bar chart to represent the information (x axis will have feature; y
axis for no. in class (higher: represent this as a %)
Finally answer the questions: what can you conclude? Are these all
inherited characteristics?
Inherited Characteristics Of Class, In Comparison To Their
Biological Parents
100
Was the experiment fair? How could
this be improved upon?
90
80
% Class
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
Eye C olour
Hair colour
Tongue roller
Height
F eature (blue = same as parent(s); red = different to parent(s))
Results
Inherited Characteristics Of Class, In Comparison To Their
Biological Parents
100
90
80
% Class
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
Eye C olour
Hair colour
Tongue roller
Height
F eature (blue = same as parent(s); red = different to parent(s))
Data suggests all the characteristics are inherited, as most of the features present in the
child were present in one or both of their parents.
Height was the least significant in terms of being inherited, however this is probably due to
the age of the child, and the fact they are still growing