Paper Pet Families

Overview You will use your knowledge of genetics to create a paper pet, cross it with a classmate’s pet, and determine the traits of the offspring.

Traits On the next slide, you will see the dominant and recessive traits of paper pets. You will use this information to make your own pet.

Paper Pet TraitsTraitDominantRecessive Colorgreenyellow Eyesroundsquare Nosetriangularoval Haircurlystraight Teethpointedsquare

Step 1 - Gender Since we are going to create paper pet families, we need to have the same number of male and female pets in this class. Choose a card from the “gender bag” to determine if your pet is going to be a male or a female. The genotype for females is xx and the genotype for males is xy. We will discuss the genoptype later. Write “male” or “female” on your chart for phenotype.

Step 2 - Traits To determine the color of your pet, the shape of the eyes, nose, and teeth, and the type of hair your pet will have, you will choose cards from the “traits bags”. Record these genotypes and phenotypes on your chart.

Step 3–Drawing Your Pet Draw your pet’s traits according to the phenotypes you recorded on your chart.

Paper pets are modest, so owners always put clothes on their pets. You can use the picture on the next slide to see how the clothes fit.

Step 4 To find your pet a mate, the owners of the male pets will put their pet’s name on a slip of paper and put them in a bag, and the owners of female pets will draw them out.

Step 5 Fill in the genotypes and phenotypes for your pet and your partner’s pet on the table that was handed out to you. Give each pet a name.

Step 6 To decide the gender of each of the babies, you must know how gender is determined by the alleles an offspring receives.

Eggs produced by females always carry an x allele because a female’s genotype is xx. Sperm produced by the male can carry an x or a y allele because a male has a genotype of xy.

If the sperm carrying an x allele fertilizes the egg, what will be the gender of the baby? What if the sperm has the y allele?

To decide which sperm fertilizes the egg, the owner of the male pet will flip a coin. Heads = the baby receives the x allele Tails = the baby receives the y allele You will need to do this for each baby.

Record the genotypes and phenotypes for the gender of all six babies and give each baby a name.

Step 7 Decide the genotypes and phenotypes for all of the other traits of baby 1 by flipping a coin to see which of the parent’s alleles the baby will receive. Heads = that baby receives the first allele from that parent Tails = the second allele

Record these on the table. Repeat this for all of the traits for all 6 baby pets.

Step 8 Create the six baby pets by cutting out the baby pet outline on the correct color of paper and by drawing the appropriate traits on each baby.

Step 9 Create a family portrait of the paper pet family by gluing the parent pets and their offspring to construction paper. Refer to the example on the board.

Step 10 Complete the “Paper Pet Punnett Square” page. You should complete 3 of the Punnett Squares and your partner should complete the other 3.

These Punnett squares show the possible genotypes of any offspring produced by your two pets.

Step 11 Glue the family portraits, the Punnett Squares, and the data table to a poster board. Refer to the example on the board.

Step 12 Answer the follow-up questions and complete the writing assignment.

Step 13 Be prepared to tell the class about your paper pet family and to explain why they look like they do.