Unit 4 Reflection

• What was this unit about? What were the themes and essential understandings?

We learned about gene related topics. We learned about what alleles are, and the difference between dominant and recessive genes. We also learned about the 2 sex chromosomes, and 44 normal chromosomes someone inherits from their parents. It is important to understand probability vs predictability. 

• Interpret how things went this unit by discussing either of the following, or both:
• Your strengths and weaknesses.

The terms are quite difficult to memorize in my opinion. I also think that some of the laws were difficult to memorize. It certainly isn't impossible, and memorization and biology come in a package. I was successful at actually understanding what is going on in these processes.

• What did you learn from these experiences?  

I learned how to identify what trait someone will have by their dominant and recessive genes. I also learned how to use a Puentt square to identify the probability of someone receiving a certain trait. The infographic basically helped me grasp these ideas better since I was needing to recall all the topics.

• What do you want to learn more about? What unanswered questions do you have? What do you wonder about?

I honestly don't really need to learn about anything else related to genes. Personally, i don't find genes a super exciting subject; however, it is cool understanding the basics. I am glad i have learned what I have learned, but I have no need to look further than i already have.

Learning how you learn

• What are your preferred learning styles (give your scores)?

Visual 11
Aural 8
Read/Write 7
Kinesthetic 7

• Did the results surprise you or were they what you would have expected?

I honestly didn't think i would be a multimodal learner. I don't know if i am too happy about being a multimodal learner because that means I need to study using multiple methods instead of one method. On the other hand, multimodal learning might be more useful to me in everyday scenarios.

• What do you do, and what can you do, to play to your learning style strengths as you prepare for your upcoming test?

I need to do spells of different learning techniques. Hopefully mixing up my learning techniques will help me take advantage of all my learning methods.

Coin Sex Lab Relate and Review

I learned about the difference between probability, and what actually happens during genetic inheritance. Coins were the alleles, and would land on a side randomly. This was showing how random some of the results could actually be. We also learned about how gene segregation affects the results of our experiment. We looked at homozygous and heterozygous traits, and determined the traits from the allele combination. We also did an experiment regarding a dihybrid cross, and that was the most difficult one in my opinion. During meiosis, chromosomes can go through recombination. This is when two chromosomes trade a piece of themselves, and this alters the gene possibilities. There are forty four autosomal chromosomes, and two sex chromosomes. The sex chromosomes are X-linked inheritance. We also saw monohybrid sets of genes in the start of our lab. One example of how the probability can be totally different from the outcome is our colorblind experiment. The probability was roughly twenty five percent of ten children would have colorblindness; however, five of our offspring had colorblindness. This means that we had an outcome of fifty percent. This means that probability is only effective to a certain extent. You can't determine what traits your child will have, but you are able to get a rough idea. Understanding this really makes understanding everyone's differences easy. It is quite amazing to see how so many different gene combinations can make everyone different. I now understand that it isn't possible to say that a baby will have blonde hair, but it is possible to say that there is a fifty percent probability of this child having blonde hair.

Genetic Infographic