Final Report From Del Mar Middle School

Hi Everyone! The 8th graders of Del Mar Middle School, Tiburon CA are ready with their analysis.We were surprised to discover the dominant trait does not always prove to be found in the majority of the population. We thought being dominant meant more people exhibited the trait.We also were surprised to discover there is no consistancy in a trait always turning up the same way in all results. For instance some schools recorded dimples being exhibited more than no dimples while other schools recorded no dimples being exhibited more than dimples. Mid-digit hair was our most confusing trait to work with as the picture was not too clear and some of us thought we could see very blonde hair. We realize we were not too scientific interpreting this trait. We learned about color-blindness and how it is a sex-linked trait - very unusual for girls to exhibit. We noticed one school recorded about 43% of their surveyed students are color-blind. Our frequency range is 61% of the dominant traits-with a low of 0% for both color-blindness and white forelock and a high of 61% for mid-digit hair.We also found out of the seven traits we surveyed, our results were only two traits showing up dominant-another surprise for us.We printed spreadsheets of the results of the fifty-three schools and "hi-lited" results that did not match our hypothesis. Our teacher wants us to find the frequency of the totaled results. We will, but not today.