1. Genetics = The study of heredity/how characteristics are passed from parents to offspring.

2. Gregor Mendel = The father of genetics. Mendel was a monk who crossed pea plants with varying traits, hence discovering simple laws of heredity.

3. Mendel’s Experiment: 1. Created pure- breeding strains of pea plants and used these as the parental generation. 2. Crossed plants different in a particular trait and found only dominant phenotype in the resulting F1 offspring. 3. Allowed F1 to self-fertilize and found a 3:1 ratio of the dominant: recessive trait in the F2 generation.

4. Mendel’s Laws: Law of Segregation = During meiosis, homologous pairs of chromosomes segregate from each other and end up in different gametes. Gametes are haploid reproductive cells such as the sperm and egg in humans. Law of Independent Assortment = Alleles for different traits are distributed to gametes independent of one another. ie. Inheritance of a gene for one trait does NOT affect the inheritance of the gene for a different trait. Exception to this law are sex-linked traits.

5. Important terms: Heredity = Biological inheritance/transmission of characteristics from parents to offspring. Traits = Characteristics. Genes = Structures/segments on chromosomes that control traits.

6. Alleles = Different forms of a gene. Ex. Blue vs. brown eye color. Dominant = Allele that prevents the expression of a recessive allele. Represent using a capital letter. Ex. B Recessive = Allele that is hidden by a dominant allele. Represent using a lower case letter. Ex. b

7. Genotype = The genetic makeup of an organism. Phenotype = The physical appearance of a trait. Phenotype is a result of the genotype.

8. Homozygous = Having two of the same alleles for a single trait. Also known as purebred. Ex. BB or bb Heterozygous = Having two different alleles for the same trait. Also known as hybrid. Ex. Bb

9. P1 = Represents the parental generation. F1 = Represents the first filial generation. - Offspring of the P1 generation. F2 = Represents the second filial generation. Offspring of the F1 generation.