. INTRODUCTION (INTRODUCE A VERY UNIQUE CHARACTERISTIC IN YOUR FAMILY.

YOU CAN INCLUDE PICTURES IF NEEDED

In our family, there is this one trait that I think is somehow unique. Unfortunately, I
have no idea what it’s called so I’ll just name it face whiskers. It’s basically whiskers on your face
and it shows when the person is smiling or just hardly compressing his face. In our family’s case, it
seems like 3 very distinct lines along the cheeks and almost like cat’s. I don’t really know whether it
is normal, but I think that it’s certainly not something that one can see in every person.

II. PROCEDURE

1. You should draw a pedigree showing the different members of your family.
a. Include as many family members as you can get data from. The more people and
generations you include, the more likely it is that you will have enough
information to determine the mode of inheritance. Ideally you should include
multiple people from at least three generations (such as you and your siblings,
your parents and possibly their siblings, and your grandparents).
b. You might need help from your parents to figure out all the relationships.
2. If you have access to a photocopier, make four copies of the pedigree so that you have
five copies total, one for each trait you are going to evaluate. If photocopying is not an
option, manually copy the pedigree.
3. Determine the phenotype of each person on your pedigree for each of the five traits. Use
a separate pedigree for each trait. Here are some tips to consider as you fill out the
pedigrees:
a. When determining if a person's earlobes are attached or detached, keep in mind
that there can be a range of attachment. Do your best to decide if it looks like the
earlobe is attached or detached.
b. Widow's peaks can vary considerably. When determining if a person has a
widow's peak, count any sort of V-shaped hairline as a widow's peak.
i. You may need to have a person pull their hair back to look for a widow's
peak.
c. When looking to see if someone has mid-digit hair, you may need to look closely
at their hands. If they have any hair on the mid-digit, even one tiny strand, then
they have mid-digit hair.
i. If a person does not have mid-digit hair and does a lot of work with their
hands, you may want to make a note of this in your lab notebook because
doing a lot of manual hand work may also wear a person's mid-digit hair
away.

d. When determining if someone has a hitchhiker's thumb, keep in mind that

people's thumbs come in a wide range of curvedness, from completely straight
to very curved. Do your best to decide if a person's thumb looks curved or
straight.

e. Choose one trait that is very unique in your family (you could also include genetic
disorder if any). Take note of some traits that may be affected by the
environmental factors.
III. PEDIGREE OF THE FAMILY (Describe each inheritance)

A. Attached Earlobes - Men with attached earlobes

- Women with attached earlobes

As one can see on the pedigree above, my grandmother has attached earlobes, but none of
her 4 children got it. Instead, it showed up on her 2 grandchildren (my cousins), as well as my
nephew. It is possible that my cousins inherited the trait from my grandmother, because the said
trait is recessive, or it may just be from their parents in which though the trait didn’t show up,
they might be carriers of it.

B. Widow’s Peak - Men with widow’s peak

- Women with widow’s peak

Widow’s peak is a V-shaped point in the hairline in the center of the forehead. The said
trait’s allele is dominant and the allele for straight line is recessive. Though this trait is somewhat
common, unfortunately, not even one in our family got it.

C. Mid-digit Hair - Men with mid-digit hair

- Women with mid-digit hair

 A person with hair on the middle part of at least one finger is considered to have the trait
mid-digital hair. Based on the pedigree made, the 1st gen man must have the mid-digit hair trait
and a genotype of ‘Mm’, while his wife has ‘mm’ , as 2 out of 4 of their children got the same
trait. Following that, their grandson inherited the mid-digit hair from his mother.

D. Hitchhiker’s Thumb - Men with hitchhiker’s thumb

- Women with hitchhiker’s thumb

Hitchhiker’s Thumb is a trait where a person is able to move their thumb backwards
beyond what a normal person can do. As seen above, my grandmother firstly have it, then, her 2
out of 4 children inherited it, which means that, in all possibility, she must have the genotype
‘Hh’, and my grandfather ‘hh’. The trait was passed down to their children which was also
inherited by their child, while those who did not get the trait, must have ‘hh’ as their genotype.

E. Face Whiskers - Man with face whiskers

- Woman with face whiskers

This trait is like 3 very distinct lines that goes along the cheeks and almost like cat’s. It
mostly shows when a person is smiling, laughing or compressing his face. I’m certain that I’ve
not yet seen this kind of trait in other people as it is not the usual lines on the cheek when
smiling, and it seeems to be running well in our family. The 1st gen that got it is my grandfather,
and only one of his children failed to get it, which means that he and my grandma are possibly
‘Ww’ . Next that got it was 2 of my cousins on the left side, in which we can assume that their
parents are ‘WW’ and ‘ww’. It was then passed by one of them to my nephew, and that
concludes that this trait is gotten by almost half of our family on my mother’s side.
IV. LEARNING INSIGHTS (Atleast 200 words)

Traits has always been a wonder to me. ‘Why cant a person have the same kinds of traits
as his siblings? or at least some, when they literally have the same parents?’. Even having it
backwards, ‘why does a grandson has more traits that’s similar to his grandparents than to his
parents?’, and for that, this activity has been more of an answer and an eye opener to me.
Throughout doing this pedigree, I’ve learnt that that alles don’t work like magic, it is a game of
traits being dominant and recessive. A trait in which a parent posses might not show up on his
child, but, it might on his grandson, one real example of this is the first pedigree diagram,
attached earlobes. Cases such as this mean that the parents are heterozygous or the trait is
recessive, the result also depends on whether the person’s trait is heterozygous or homozygous.
In addition, a person’s offspring has more chances of getting a certain trait if it is dominant and
even more if his mate has a similar alleles/genes. In a nutshell, I think that topics like this are
supposed to be learned by everybody and that this is bound to be imperative in the future. I
mean, what would happen if we can actually increase the chances of traits being more dominant
or more recessive? Or in all possibility, become capable of altering these traits/genes?