Punnett square

A punnett square is like a big grid that helps you figure out what traits a baby might have based on the traits of its parents. Think of it like a game of tic-tac-toe, where each box represents a different trait that the baby could end up with.

Let's say we're looking at two parents: a mommy who has blue eyes and a daddy who has brown eyes. They each have two copies of a gene that determine eye color, and they can pass on one copy to their baby.

We would draw a punnett square with two rows and two columns, and label them "mommy" and "daddy" along the top and left side. In each box, we would write down one of the copies of the gene that the mommy and daddy could pass on.

So the top row might look like this: BB (mommy's two copies of the blue eye gene).

The left column might look like this: Bb (daddy's two copies of the brown eye gene, with one dominant B and one recessive b).

Then we would fill in the rest of the boxes by combining each possible gene copy from the mommy with each possible gene copy from the daddy. For example, the top left box would be BB + Bb, which would result in a baby with BB (blue eyes).

Overall, the punnett square helps us predict what traits a baby might have based on the genes they inherit from their parents. It's kind of like a puzzle, where we have to put the pieces together to figure out the final picture.