Reptile & Amphibian Forums

well we started our hereditary and genetics unit about a week ago. Wednesday we started punnet squares. I was like alright i know how to do these this will be easy, because of being into cornsnakes, iv had a little practice with this. Well the teacher completely confused me... now im so confused i cant even think. He is making things heterzygous and homozygous that dont even really matter like dimples, and earlobes. I had to have a talk with him and explain that he should try things like Amelanistic, Anerthristic, and hypomelanistic, along with motley, and stripe. Well he had no clue what i was talking about so i had to explain it to him. Now hes combineing things and not calling them the right thing. Example would be a Homozygous Amelanistic Anery A, He thinks thats the right answer and i keep telling him that its what is called a snow and he has no idea what im talking about. So i had to explain to refresh his memory from earlier this week and tell him that an Amelanistic Anery A (snow)is Co-Dominant. Or it shows both traits. Once he under stood what i was talking about and got unconfused we were able to come up with some more easy traits to combine in punnet squares. I think im on the right track feel free to fix anything i might have gotten wrong.

Sorry for rambeling but this whole week has been me talking about cornsnakes for 85 minutes a class.

RV
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Corns 0.0.3
0.0.1 03' Amel
0.0.1 03' Normal
0.0.1 04' Ghost
Rats
Yellow Rat 0.0.1

my lil sisters under my supervision
0.0.1 Green water dragon ---- "Dragon"

I am a 10th grade bio teacher AND cannot wait till the genetics unit. I totally plan to use my cornsnakes as part of my unit. Just bear with your teacher b/c during my student teaching, I had a co-op who would NOT allow me to use any live animals in a biology classroom (imagine actually studing living things IN a class about the study of living things.lol). Anyway, I had to teach genetics using punnetts and imaginary traits and animals b/c thats what my co-op wanted....it sucked...it was unbearable for the students, who I'm certain would have rather learned from a real world perspective. Anyway, you are really ahead of things if you already know about all that at 15 years old. Is it an honors class?

Oh...and one more thing...I found a genetics lesson plan based solely around corn snake genetics in the NSTA monthly magazine (NSTA=National Science Teachers Association) and it was pretty cool...it required using pics of the snakes sorta like playing cards, instead of live animals (for those that don't have access to live animals). ANYWAY, I bet your teacher would be really impressed if you brought the info in...I'll look it up and see if I can't email it to you...you might not be able to actually get ahold of the lesson plan BUT you could give it to him/her to look up and they shouldn't have any problems finding it somewhere, as all school's have that magazine floating around in the science dept. or in the library.
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Sincerely,
Jason
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My Website:
www.members.aol.com/northeastsnakes

Too many snakes to list in my signature anymore.

n/p

If you have a fax machine.....I can fax it to you...(just email me at northeastsnakes@aol.com or you can look it up in a college library..whichever you prefer...I have it right here in front of me...I randomly came across this article while in the library between grad school classes...it was like coming across the right needle in an entire haystack.lol

Anyway, I made a copy of it last year and here is the correct info...
Article Title: "Corn Snake Genetics"
Author: Kristin King
Source: The Science Teacher, January 2004, pp. 50-53
an online powerpoint...listed in her article:
http://www.mrskingsbioweb.com/Mendelism_files/frame.htm

ACTUALLY KATHY, K.King is a high school teacher in Florida so maybe you already know her...and the article says she was a novice to corns when she created this lesson so its probably a great lesson for any teacher who doesn't have any experience whatsoever with corns...otherwise, the experienced teacher/corn keeper can modify it to their needs, if necessary. I personally think its a great start to real-life genetics.
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Sincerely,
Jason
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My Website:
www.members.aol.com/northeastsnakes

Too many snakes to list in my signature anymore.

including math...when doing statistics or whatever...
heck, I even thought of getting the shop teacher involved since I don't have an incubator anymore so I thought maybe I could see if his students could design an efficient incubator...but thats a LONG way off...I'm just struggling to survive my first year teaching.LOL
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Sincerely,
Jason
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My Website:
www.members.aol.com/northeastsnakes

Too many snakes to list in my signature anymore.

thanx for the responce. my class is acually an applied class, im pretty smart in science but i really screwed up last year and now i need to bust my butt to get back up to my honors level. thanx and good to her from a teachers prospective.
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Corns 0.0.3
0.0.1 03' Amel
0.0.1 03' Normal
0.0.1 04' Ghost
Rats
Yellow Rat 0.0.1

my lil sisters under my supervision
0.0.1 Green water dragon ---- "Dragon"

Way to go RV. Keep spreading the news. Maybe some day people will understand our addiction.
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1.0 snow corn
1.0 anery motley stripe
1.0 amel corn
1.0 kisatchie corn
1.1 oketee corns
0.1 charcoal corn
0.1 normal corn
0.1 normal motley stripe
0.1 tx rat
4.5 ball python
1.1 columbian red tail boas
1.1 dumeril boas
1.1 green iguanas
1.0 leopard geko
1.2 dogs
freezer full of mice and rats

np
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Corns 0.0.3
0.0.1 03' Amel
0.0.1 03' Normal
0.0.1 04' Ghost
Rats
Yellow Rat 0.0.1

my lil sisters under my supervision
0.0.1 Green water dragon ---- "Dragon"

hey i was just wondering if bpacker stood for back packing. I was wondering because i am an avid backpacker. You signature just caught my attention. Later RV
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Corns 0.0.3
0.0.1 03' Amel
0.0.1 03' Normal
0.0.1 04' Ghost
Rats
Yellow Rat 0.0.1

my lil sisters under my supervision
0.0.1 Green water dragon ---- "Dragon"

Sorry for the delayed response. Yes it does stand for backpacker. I love backpacking. I dont get out as much as I used to, but there is nothing better than getting lost in the woods. Thanks for asking. Keep on herping.
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1,0 snow
1,0 amel
1,0 kisatchie
1,0 aney stripe motley
0,1 normal
0,1 charcoal
0,1 motley
1,1 oketee
0,1 tx rat
4,5 ball python
1,1 dumerils boa
1,1 columbian red tail boa
1,1 green iguana
1,0 leopard gecko
1,2 dogs
freezer full of mice & rats

>Now hes combineing things and not calling them the right thing. Example would be a Homozygous Amelanistic Anery A, He thinks thats the right answer and i keep telling him that its what is called a snow and he has no idea what im talking about. So i had to explain to refresh his memory from earlier this week and tell him that an Amelanistic Anery A (snow)is Co-Dominant. Or it shows both traits.

Actually, amelanistic anerythristic is valid, especially if he is talking about the genes. Snow is just more commonly used in the hobby. That does not make amelanistic anerythristic incorrect. And using amelanistic anerythristic rather than snow is more understandable to beginning students (IMHO) when they are working a two locus Punnett Square. "Snow" is just shorter and sexier than "amelanistic anerythristic".

"... Amelanistic Anery A (snow)is Co-Dominant." This is 100% wrong. Amelanistic is recessive to it's normal allele. Anerythristic is recessive to its normal allele. The amelanistic mutant gene and the anerythristic mutant gene are independent mutants found at different loci. Amelanistic anerythristic (snow) is the phenotype produced by combining the phenotypes produced by two recessive mutants at different loci.

Codominant refers to one locus, not two. There are three possible phenotypes from different combinations of two alleles. The normal phenotype, when there is a pair of normal alleles. The full mutant phenotype, when there is a pair of mutant alleles. And the heterozygous phenotype, when a mutant allele is paired with a normal allele. Example -- the normal reticulated python, the homozygous (super) tiger reticulated python, and the tiger reticulated python. BTW, I am using "codominant" as a synonym for "incomplete dominant", "partial dominant", and a dozen other terms.

And if you use "super" instead of "homozygous", your teacher should cut you off at the hip. He's trying to teach standard genetics, and "super" is herper genetics slang that ought to be expunged from the language.

I worked at a university genetics lab for five years. I can assure you that relying on the genetics you see on herper forums and websites is a quick way to shoot yourself in the foot. In some cases, it's more like shooting yourself in the head.

Paul Hollander

the day i wrote that post i was really stressed out and confused. but i understand what your saying. thanx for the responce

RV
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Corns 0.0.3
0.0.1 03' Amel
0.0.1 03' Normal
0.0.1 04' Ghost
Rats
Yellow Rat 0.0.1

my lil sisters under my supervision
0.0.1 Green water dragon ---- "Dragon"