Final Report

We are an 8th grade class of 11 students who began this project on March 2000. We thought that there would be a relationship between the number of times an inherited trait appeared and its frequency of appearnace. We completed our final report and entered our data in the final survey area. We were not able to enter our data on colorblindness because of time restraints.

Our class found that the most important thing we learned was that we could inherit a trait from our parents that was not visible in them or in our brothers or sisters. We also learned how to create an original database and analyze the data we gathered ourselves.

The results of our survey introduced us to several new inherited traits such as a forelock, free earlobes and mid digit hair. In Science class of 6th grade we studied genetics and learned about other inherited traits but never traced them in our own families or extended community.

We learned that the most common trait among our families was a straight pinky (67 our of 88) followed by free ear lobe (42 out of 88) and the appearance of mid digit hair (41 out of 88), all of which are dominant traits. Out of those numbers everyone surveyed who had the straight pinky also had midigit hair. We also learned that some of the similiar traits shared in our survey were dimples and curved thumbs. The frequency range of inherited traits was calculated to be (67/88 -4/88 or 75%-4 1/2%=)70 1/2%

We analyzed the data in our own surveys by learning the various features of databases such as arranging and sorting data and pulling them into a spreadsheet to graph the results. Our results seem to indicate a relationship between the frequency of inherited dominant traits.