Gregor Mendel
Founder of Genetics
Early Years
Successes:
- Gregor was recognized as a gifted student and sent to boarding school.
- He made good relationships with his teachers and earned top marks in science and math.
Struggles:
- His parents could not afford the boarding school so he tutored kids to pay for it.
- Mendel took a teaching test and failed. He took it again and his nerves got the best of him and he stormed out of the room and failed it again.
Experimental Design
Facts:
He studied heredity by crossing pea plants
He used pea plants because they grow fast and their traits are easy to see
Data
Specific Data
If you round up all the ratios they are 3:1
When he crossed plants that always produced yellow peas with plants that always had green peas, all the new plants had yellow seeds
He crossed two of the yellow pea plants from the new batch and the green trait came back
Reactions
Scientists thought Mendel was demonstrating what was already known but until some years later when scientists re-discovered his theory and added onto it was he recognized for his work.
Foundation
He has shown that genes are carried from an offspring's parents down to the offspring during intercourse.