Name: ______Date: ______Per. _____

Gummy Bear Genetics (Yellow & Green)-Absent Students

Materials:

Brown paper bags (enough for 2 per each group)

Gummy bears separated into green and yellow (enough for at least 8 per group)

Before lab: Fill one of the brown paper bags with a random assortment of yellow and green Gummy Bears.

Introduction: The rare and elusive wild gummy bear is unfortunately endangered due to its extreme tastiness! However, you can help. The Houston Zoo has received a pair of wild gummy bears to breed in captivity so that offspring might be released into the wild. The zoo directors have heard about your recent studies in genetics and have selected you to help them with their project.

Gummy Bear Characteristics

Gummy Bears come in two different colors: Yellow and Green

The Genotype for a Yellow gummy bear can either be: BB or Bb

The Genotype for a Green gummy bear can only be: bb

Questions for Review

  1. In the scenario above, Yellow coloration is the ______ trait.
  2. If I tell you a gummy bear is yellow, I am describing its ______
  3. If I tell you a gummy bear has two recessive alleles, I am describing its ______. What color would this bear be? ______

Step 1: Selecting the Parent Generation

Without looking, randomly choose two gummy bears to be the “parents” of the future gummy bear generations. Write down the phenotypes and genotypes of each parent in the space below. If you pick a yellow gummy bear, you will have to pick which genotype you want to use.

Parent 1: Phenotype: __Yellow______

Parent 1: Genotype: ____Bb______

Parent 2: Phenotype: ____Yellow___

Parent 2: Genotype: _____Bb______

Step 2: Predicting the Offspring (generation 1)

Fill in the Punnett Square below to predict the traits of the future offspring of these two bears.

Fill a bag with 4 pieces of paper, with the colors that represent the number of each color you would expect to see from the cross above written on it.

Randomly pick one “gummy bear” from the bag…this will serve as offspring #1

  1. What color is offspring #1? ______

Put the gummy bear back into the bag so that there are 4 gummy bears in the bag

Randomly Draw a “gummy bear” from the bag…this will serve as offspring #2

  1. What color is offspring #2?______

Repeat the steps above until you have data for four offspring total. Make sure you put the “gummy bear” back into the bag every time you take it out!!!

  1. What color is offspring #3?______
  1. What color is offspring #4? ______
  1. Did the Punnett square accurately predict the percentages of each color for what you actually found? If not, why do you think this is? ______

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If so, do you think that Punnett Squares always accurately predict the outcomes of the cross of two organisms? Why or why not?______

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Producing a different generation using new information

Ms. Trinkle and her fellow scientists at Texas A&M University have closely been monitoring what is left of the remaining gummy bear population in the wild. This research team has found that green gummy bears in the wild survive better than yellow ones because they can camouflage themselves against the trees.

Using this information, what color parents would you tell the biologists at the zoo to cross to produce offspring that are better to camouflage themselves in the wild?

Parent 1 phenotype should be: ______

Parent 1 genotype should be: ______

Parent 2 phenotype should be: ______

Parent 2 genotype should be: ______

Fill in the Punnett Square below using these two parents

According to this cross, ______% of the offspring produced from these parents should be green.

Why did both parents have to be green? ______

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Do you think selectively breeding so that you get only one genotype in the offspring (in other words what the biologists at the zoo above did) is a good idea? Why or why not? ______

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Maintaining genetic diversity

Scientists at the Houston Zoo still want to keep genetic diversity in the released populations of gummy bears, so they decide to also breed Yellow gummy bears for release. Additionally, Ms. Trinkle and her group of scientists have just published an article in the major scientific journal, Science, about a new mutation that has been occurring in green gummy bears.

This mutation only affects the allele, b, but not the allele, B.

A gummy bear with genotype BB is not affected.

A gummy bear with genotype Bb is still affected by the mutation, but can live as normal they are known as carriers

A gummy bear with genotype bb is doubly affected and cannot live at all.

Scientists want to produce a generation that has a high amount of survivors but is still genetically diverse. What parent genotypes should they use? ______

Fill in the Punnett square below with your final answer

Why can bears with the genotype Bb still live normally even though they have the affected gene?

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