Boxi Learn › Biology › Stage 3 · Structure and Evidence
Mendel's peas: why the 3 : 1?
BIO-4 Inheritance is passed on in unitsX-2 Evidence outweighs opinion
What many people think
Children are a blend of their parents, like mixing paint.
The idea
Each parent passes on one of its two copies of a gene at random, so a hidden trait comes back in about a quarter of the grandchildren.
Explain it
A friend says children are a mix of their parents, like paint. Use the white flowers that came back in the grandchildren to explain why that can't be the whole story.
Try at home
Give each parent a coin: heads = P, tails = p. Toss both coins together 40 times and tally how often you get pp. Do you get about 10?