What are mendelian inheritance patterns?

You get traits from your parents by getting pieces from them, kind of like getting a cookie from a parent who has two kinds of cookies in their jar.

Mendelian inheritance patterns are the rules that explain how these pieces (called genes) work when you get them from your mom and dad. It’s like playing a game with colored marbles: each marble is a version of a trait, and you pick one from each parent to see what color you end up with.

Imagine your mom has red marbles and blue marbles in her jar, and your dad has red marbles and green marbles in his. When you get one marble from each parent, you might end up with red, blue, or green, depending on what you picked.

Sometimes the red marble is stronger, so even if you got a blue or green one, it might not show up, just like how sometimes you can have brown eyes even if your parents have blue and green eyes.

Each parent has their own jar of marbles (genes), and when they make a baby, they each give one marble to that baby. That’s how traits are passed down, like a game with real-life rules! You get traits from your parents by getting pieces from them, kind of like getting a cookie from a parent who has two kinds of cookies in their jar.

Mendelian inheritance patterns are the rules that explain how these pieces (called genes) work when you get them from your mom and dad. It’s like playing a game with colored marbles: each marble is a version of a trait, and you pick one from each parent to see what color you end up with.