In the past week in science, we have had numerous decisions about genetics and heredity. In a recent activity we have put genetics and probability to the test. The activity is called spudoodle, in this activity students were given two sets of genetics….one from a mother and one from a father. Students were then asked to use the mom and dad genes to create an offspring. This offspring of these two sets of genes were created our spudoodles. Each spudoodle contained traits that were passed on from the parents…some were dominant traits and others were recessive. Please see the document above for a full explanation of the activity.

Each spudoodle contained a unique combination of traits that included hair, nose, spine, ears, mouth, eyes, and tail. Each group created their own offspring (spudoodle) from the genetic combination of each parent that was passed on to the offspring using every day items to construct them. Items they used included:

• Potatoes = Body
• Toothpicks = Hair
• Pushpins = Nostrils
• Pipe Cleaner = Tail
• Paperclips = Feet
• Cork = Ears
• Coins = Mouth
• Marshmallows = Dorsal Spine

In addition, students were asked to identify the genetics traits that were dominant and recessive by analysis of the probability of each genetic trait. Above is a slideshow of the spudoodles created by my first and third hour science classes.

Mr. McClung