Paper Pet Project

Did you ever wonder why some offspring resemble their parents while others do not? You

should now have some background knowledge on how offspring come to have traits similar to

those of their parents. In this project, you’ll create a family of “paper pets” to explore how

traits pass from parents to offspring. You will create two paper pets that you will then cross to

determine what traits their offspring will have.

To complete this project successfully you must:

Create two of your unique paper pets each with five different traits

Cross your two pets together to produce 6 offspring

Determine what traits the offspring will have

Explain how the offspring came to have those traits

Step 1: Cut out your pets from either blue or yellow construction paper.

Step 2: Chose other traits for your pet from this list:

Female or male (1 of each)

Eye shape (square or round)

Nose shape (oval or triangular)

Teeth shape (pointed or square)

Step 3: Determine your pet’s genotypes. On the back of each one, write what alleles your pets

have for each trait. Use XX for a female and XY for a male. You may choose the dominant alleles

for each of your other traits (example BB for purebred blue skin, Bb for hybrid blue skin and bb

for recessive yellow skin). HINT: If your pet has a trait controlled by a dominant allele, you can

choose which of the possible combinations of alleles your pet has.

Pet A Pet B

Phenotype Genotype Phenotype Genotype

Male/Female

Skin Color

Eye Shape

Nose Shape

Teeth Shape

Step 4: You will now cross your two pets together to produce six offspring. For each trait, use

coin tosses to determine which allele that offspring will inherit from each parent. For example,

if your female parent has an allele combination of Bb for blue skin, heads could represent B and

tails could represent b. Your coin toss result would determine which allele it would inherit from

its’ mother. You would then need to do another coin toss to determine which allele it would

inherit from the father for your two allele combination. List the allele combination for each of

your six offspring below. Then either construct of draw out your six offspring to compare them

to your parent pets.

Offspring 1 Offspring 2 Offspring 3

Mom Dad Allele Comb.

Mom Dad Allele Comb.

Mom Dad Allele Comb.

Male/Female

Skin Color

Eye Shape

Nose Shape

Teeth Shape

Offspring 4 Offspring 5 Offspring 6

Mom Dad Allele Comb.

Mom Dad Allele Comb.

Mom Dad Allele Comb.

Male/Female

Skin Color

Eye Shape

Nose Shape

Teeth Shape