Toothpick Fish

This is my other class response to an activity we did in class today (1/19/07) it was called:

TOOTHPICK FISH

Basically, we did a experiment with toothpicks that had little colors at the top. The lesson was supposed to represent the genotypes and phenotypes of the alleles. We filled in a chart which helped us remember which gene combonation wouls turn out a certain color. This is what it basically looked like:

FISH COLOR GENE COMBONATIONS
Green / GG, Gr, Gy
Red / rr
Yellow / yy
Orange / yr or ry

Then, we answered some questions such as:

a."Can two red fish mate and have green offsring? Why or why not?"

No, this is not possible because the fish would be a purebred red which makes the chance of having a green one %0 and a chance of having a red one %100

b."Can two orange fish mate and have red offsring? Why or why not?"

Yes, because if you do a punnett square, there is a %25 chance of red offsring.

Next we moved on to the activity with parteners, which in my opinion, I thought was a good example of how a fishes gene pool comes out the way it does.
We randomly picked the toothpicks out of a cup (genepool) and put them in pairs. We then charted what out combonations were. (For example: A green toothpick and a yellow toothpick made gren scales because green is dominent to everything). We repeated that process 4 times and ended up with survivors. For my last generation, the green disappeared from the gene pool. After the activity, I decided to research an interesting "Fish Fact". I found on a website that deep-sea fishing actually demolishes some types of fish from the gene pool. It says that it removes the "Older Fish" from the gene pool, possibly demolishing a species.

SOURCES

Science Magazine Website