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Mind Your Mendel (Mendel Then…and Now) (October 22, 2004, Two)

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Program Summary

As much as kids may hate to eat them, we owe a debt of gratitude to the humble pea. Not only are peas good for us, they are the organisms upon which the field of genetics is built.

In the 1850s in Bavaria, an unassuming and obscure German monk tended a bed of pea plants in a monastery garden, determined to figure out how traits were passed from generation to generation. In as controlled an experiment as was possible in those days, Gregor Mendel pollinated the plants by hand, breeding them for seven distinct characteristics. The results led to the dominant and recessive gene theory that we know so well today.

What is accepted as fact today was scoffed at back then, partly because it went against popular thinking and partly because Mendel was a nobody. Working alone in a remote town, Mendel had no connections or credibility in the scientific world; the copies of his report that he sent to his contemporaries were either ridiculed or simply unread. Darwin’s copy was found unopened in the biologist’s papers after his death. Discouraged, Mendel eventually abandoned further research in the subject, and his work essentially disappeared until interest in genetics was revived in the early part of the 20^th century.

Guests

Robin Marantz Henig, author of "The Monk in the Garden: The Lost and Found Genius of Gregor Mendel"
New York, New York

James Crow, emeritus professor of genetics and medical genetics at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, Wisconsin

Donald Duvick, affiliate professor of Plant Breeding at Iowa State University and senior vice president for research at
Pioneer Hi-Bred International, Inc. in Johnston, Iowa

Related Links and Resources

MendelWeb
The Biology Project: Mendelian Genetics
G.A. Marx Pea Collection
Careers in Genetics Field
Thinkquest.org: The Gene School - Mendel: The Father of Genetics

For Discussion:

• What was Mendel’s background? How did he get his education?
• What was he studying in his pea experiments? How did he design his project?
• What did Mendel deduce from the results of the breeding?
• Why were Mendel’s ideas rejected during his lifetime?
• What do you think might have happened if Darwin had read Mendel’s paper?

Activities

It runs in the family. Class is in session at The Gene School - Mendel: The Father of Genetics from Thinkquest. Well-written and interesting, The Gene School demonstrates the principles of genetics with a multitude of experiments and games. Thornier issues in genetics are also addressed in the Applications area, and students can weight in with their opinions on the Polls page.

Mind your peas and cues. At Mendel's Peas, a cartoon Mendel leads students through his pea experiment and gives instructions for reproducing it in the classroom (Mendel's Peas Instructions). Check out the Web Lab Directory page for many more genetic adventures. Shockwave is needed and can be downloaded free of charge.

Is it just me? At the Genetics lesson plan from Discovery School, students discuss the question of nature versus nurture in a child’s development and design an experiment involving identical twins to explore it .

Use the search box below to perform a Google search within any of the specifc sites or general domains mentioned in this Activities section.

Hear the Program

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