SKWIRK Brainiacs!
Unit
Topic
Chapter
STAGE 4
Science
1. History of Science
2. Important Discoveries of Human Civilisation
3. Biology
Gregor Mendel - Inheritance
Previously we in the SKWIKR online content we learnt about some people who made
important contributions to Biology. Below we will learn a bit more about Gregor Mendel
and the work he did on inheritance.
Instructions: Read though the following passage and answer the questions below. Have a
Go!
Gregor Mendel was a famous scientist who was the first person to figure out genetic
inheritance. He was an Austrian monk who carried out experiment by growing
populations of pea’s plants.
He carefully made pure populations of pea plants. A pure population means that when the
plants reproduced together their offspring would always have that trait e.g. a green pea
pod population always produced green pea pods when reproduced together.
What Mendel did next was to breed two pure populations together e.g. yellow pods with
green pods.
What Mednel found from this first joining of pure population created was that the
offspring all expressed one feature. In this case ALL the offspring are GREEN.
GENERATION ONE
© 2010-2011 SKWIRK / Red Apple Education Pty Ltd
STAGE 4
SKWIRK Brainiacs!
Science
The reason that the pods were all green is because the gene for GREEN PODS is dominant
over that of YELLOW pods which are recessive (hidden). The next step was to breed to
plants from Generation 1.
GENERATION 1
GENERATION 2
The second generation resulted in a 3 green to 1 yellow ratio. This ratio later became very
important in proving Mendel’s theory on Genetic Inheritance.
It was studying these trends in population that gave Mendel the idea that when organisms
reproduce they must inherit one set of genes from each parent; this is who you get genes
from both your parents to be the person you are today. It was this discovery that lead to
the beginning of understanding of genetics. Since the time of Mendel genetics has become
very important for food and medicine.
What was Grefor Mendel profession?
What plants did Mendel grow in order to test his theories?
What was Mendel comparing in the opoulations?
What was the the important ratio?
What was the name of Mendels theory?
Observing trends in populations that gave Mendel the idea of what?
My Learning points – 3 Points
© 2010-2011 SKWIRK / Red Apple Education Pty Ltd