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Inheritance Answer Key

Vocabulary: acquired trait, asexual reproduction, clone, codominant traits, dominant trait,
inherit, offspring, recessive trait, sexual reproduction, trait

Prior Knowledge Questions (Do these BEFORE using the Gizmo.)

[Note: The purpose of these questions is to activate prior knowledge and get students thinking.
Students are not expected to know the answers to the Prior Knowledge Questions.]

1. Johnny and Isabelle are a young couple expecting their first child. Both have blue eyes,
tattoos, and green hair. Which features do you think their child is most likely to have?
□ Blue eyes Answers will vary. Correct answer is shown.
□ Tattoos
□ Green hair

2. Features like eye color, skin tone, height, and hair color are called traits. What traits do you
think children inherit, or receive, from their parents?

Answers will vary. [Most of our traits are inherited from parents but may vary depending on
the environment. These include physical characteristics like height, skin color, hair color,
and eye color as well as some components of personality, susceptibility to disease, etc.]

Gizmo Warm-up
In the Inheritance Gizmo you can create and breed aliens on an
imaginary planet. Select Asexual reproduction. During asexual
reproduction, a single parent produces offspring (children).

1. Click Create alien and create your own alien. Describe its traits
in the Parent row of the table:

Alien Body type Skin Color Antenna shape Tattoo

Parent Student choice Student choice Student choice Student choice
Offspring Varies Same as parent Same as parent None

2. Drag the parent over to the Parent 1 space and press Reproduce. Fill in the Offspring
traits on the table above. What traits appear to be inherited from the parent?

Skin color and antenna shape are inherited from the parent. [It may appear that body type is
also inherited, but body type is controlled by availability of food.]

Because this offspring inherits its traits from one parent, it is called a clone.
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Get the Gizmo ready:

Activity A:
• Select Sexual reproduction.
Inherited traits
• Drop all remaining aliens (if any) in the Exit hole.

Question: Are all parental traits inherited by offspring?

1. Observe: In sexual reproduction, two parents pass traits to the offspring. Create and breed
a variety of aliens. Record your observations on a separate sheet of paper.

2. Form a hypothesis: Which traits do you think are passed down from alien parents to their
offspring, and which traits are not? Explain.

Hypotheses will vary. [Students should notice that skin color and antenna shape are passed
down, and body type and tattoos are not.]

3. Experiment: Set the Food supply to 2 bushes. Create two identical parents with thick
bodies, green skin, curly antennas, and triangle tattoos. Make two offspring and record their
traits in the table below.

Offspring Body type Skin Color Antenna shape Tattoo

Offspring 1 Thin Green Curly None
Offspring 2 Thin Green Curly None

4. Analyze: Compare the offspring traits to the parent traits.

A. Which traits were passed from parents to offspring? Green skin and curly antennas.

B. Which traits were not passed down? Thick body type and tattoos.

Traits that are not passed down (not inherited) are called acquired traits.

5. Investigate further: Create offspring with a few different levels of Food supply. How does
food supply affect the body type of offspring?

The greater the food supply, the thicker the body of the offspring.

6. Think and discuss: Suppose a human child had a mother with dyed-pink hair and a father
who was missing a finger (lost in an accident). Would the child inherit these traits? Explain.

The child would not inherit these traits because they are acquired. [Traits that are obtained
during life are not encoded in genes and therefore are not passed down.]

2019
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Get the Gizmo ready:

Activity B:
• Clear all parents and offspring from the Gizmo by
Skin color dropping them into the Exit hole.
• Create a green alien and a pink alien.

Question: How is alien skin color inherited?

1. Predict: What do you think the offspring of a green alien and pink alien will look like?

Predictions will vary.

2. Experiment: Test your prediction with the Gizmo. What did you find?

Offspring had green skin with pink spots.

When offspring show a mixture of parent traits, the traits are called codominant traits.

3. Predict: What do you think will happen when you breed two green-and-pink spotted aliens?

Predictions will vary.

4. Experiment: Follow the steps below. (You may have already done the first step or two.)
• Place a green alien and a pink alien in the locations for Parent 1 and Parent 2.
• Breed these parents twice. Drag both offspring to the spaces below the Nest.
• Drag the two green-and-pink offspring up to become the new Parent 1 and Parent 2.
• Breed these aliens 10 times. Record how many times each skin color occurred in
their offspring. (For example, if there were 2 green offspring, write “2” below “green.”)

Skin color Green Green and pink Pink

Number of offspring about 2 – 3* about 4 – 6* about 2 – 3*
*Because results are based on probabilities, actual results will vary.

5. Analyze: Look at the results of your experiment.

A. What kind of skin did most of the offspring have? Green and pink

B. Did all of the offspring have green and pink skin? No

6. Think and discuss: For a codominant trait, do the offspring of identical parents always look
like the parents? Explain your answer.

No. Some of the offspring of green-and-pink aliens had plain green skin, and some had plain
pink skin.

2019
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Get the Gizmo ready:

Activity C:
• Clear all aliens by dropping them into the Exit hole.
Antenna shape • Create two aliens – one with straight antenna and
one with curly antenna.

Question: How is alien antenna shape inherited?

1. Predict: What do you think will happen when you breed an alien with straight antenna to an

alien with curly antenna? Predictions will vary.

2. Experiment: Test your prediction using the Gizmo. Create at least 5 offspring. What did you

notice? All offspring have straight antenna.

3. Analyze: Sometimes when two traits are combined, one is a dominant trait and the other is
a recessive trait. If both traits are present, only the dominant trait is seen in the offspring.

A. Which trait is dominant, straight antenna or curly? Straight antenna

B. Which trait is recessive? Curly antenna

4. Investigate further: Take two of the straight-antenna offspring and breed them together to
produce 10 new offspring. Record the antenna type of each offspring.

A. What happened? Most offspring have straight antenna, but some have curly
antenna.

B. Did the recessive trait disappear? No. It reappeared in this experiment.

C. How can a trait skip a generation? If both parents have the recessive trait, some of
their offspring can inherit the recessive trait from each parent. [Alternative answer: A
recessive trait can skip a generation if at least two grandparents have that trait.]

5. Draw conclusions: For a dominant/recessive trait, do the offspring of identical parents

always look like the parents? Explain.

No. Some of the offspring of two straight-antenna parents had curly antenna.

6. Compare: How do the offspring of two parents that reproduce sexually differ from the
offspring of a single parent that reproduces asexually?

All of the offspring of the single asexual parent will have the same genetic traits as the
parent. The offspring of sexually-reproducing parents will have a mixture of their parents’
traits, and each offspring will be different.

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