Last week in science we learned about genetics. In class we learned about a guy named Gregor Mendel who had the hypothesis that traits were not randomly given to a newborn, but passed on by the parents. He tested his hypothesis on pea plants.  He carefully bred pea plants with simple differences like height, flower color, pod color, and pea appearance. When he bred a tall pea plant with a short one, the offspring were all tall. They were tall because the gene that made them tall was dominant to the gene that would make them short. When he bred two of these pea plants together, he got mostly tall pea plants, and a few short. 

The reason that some were tall and some were short was because the offspring of the tall and short pea plants had a different genetic code than a normal tall pea plant. For example: the genetic code of a tall pea plant is ‘PP,’ and the genetic code of a short pea plant is ‘pp.’ When you breed PP with pp, the offspring will have the genetic code: Pp. The gene P is dominant to the gene p, so the offspring are tall. When you breed those tall plants together you will get the genetic codes: PP, Pp, Pp, pp. So, out of four plants, one would be short and the rest would be tall. Two of the tall ones would carry the short gene with them, though. 

Why did he pick pea plants?

When did he first hypothesize this? 

When was the Punnett square invented?