In Class: Hamster Punnet Square

We are currently learning how to read Punnent Squares in science. I think that reading Punnent Squares are really easy now. We did one experiment that I thought was fun: Hamster Vacation. Basically, some people got a picture of a hamster and a story line went along with it. The hamsters got together and had offspring that's when we found out their traits.


Here's an example of a Punnent Square:









We combined the traits of the hamsters and found out their offspring phenotype and genotypes. How you do a Punnent Square is basically like multiplication without the numbers. The dominant allele is represented by the capital B and the recessive allele is represented by the lower case b. The dominant always wins over the recessive so B=brown and b=white. If you have a Bb then it’s brown. If you have a bb then it’s white. It takes practice but one you get it, then it’s easy.