Thanks to all who attended our very first meeting. Our main activity was a probability experiment that attempts to predict what percentage of the gene pool will be composed of genes for Sickle Cell Anemia. We labeled the recessive Sickle Cell gene as "a" and the dominant Normal gene as "A". We assumed that Sickle Cell Anemia is 100% lethal, we assumed that Malaria is 50% lethal for those who of type (A,A), and that people of type (A,a) have normal blood and are resistant to malaria. Using cups and beads to model genes and gene pools, and a coin flip to model the chances of surviving Malaria, we broke into groups to model several generations of a small population. Most of the groups found that the percentage of Sickle Cell genes ranged between 20 and 40 percent, although we did have one group where the Sickle Cell gene completely disappeared from the populations. The link below will take you to the instruction sheet that we used for this exercise.
Experimental Instructions
After each of our meetings I am hoping to hear comments and suggestions from all of you. This cooperation between Paisley, Parkland and WFU is just getting started, so I want to listen to your comments and then adapt until we arrive at a best possible set up. One change that we are likely to make for our next meeting is location. Perhaps we can meet at Paisley next time, and Parkland the time after that.
Problem #1
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