Name______________________
Use the website www.fieldmuseum.org/mendel/ to answer the following questions about …
Gregor Mendel a.k.a “The Father of Genetics”
Click Enter and then use the tabs on the right labeled About the Exhibition and Gregor
Mendel’s Story, as well as the tabs that open under Gregor Mendel’s Story, to answer the
questions.
1. What was Gregor Mendel’s profession?
2. What vegetable did he use in his famous experiment?
3. In what year did Mendel lay out the basic laws of inheritance?
4. Were his findings published in that year, or were they ignored and studied again later?
5. In 400 BC what Greek philosopher proposed that tiny particles from every part of the
body of each parent became blended, producing an individual with the characteristics of
both?
6. In what decade did English livestock breeder Robert Bakewell pioneer the systematic
breeding of sheep and cattle to obtain higher quality wool and fatter beef?
7. Gregor Mendel was born to poor farmers in what Empire?
8. How old was Gregor Mendel when he joined the Abbey of St. Thomas in 1843?
9. To what university did Mendel attend that had a library with over 30,000 books?
10. What 5 other interests did Mendel have? (subjects/science topics)
11. How many years did Mendel’s pea experiment take to complete before his findings
were published?
12. How many pea plants did he grow throughout those years?
13. What year did Gregor Mendel die?
14. Mendel’s experiment was so advanced for the time that many people didn’t believe
what he found. He knew his findings about passing traits from generation to generation
were important and told his colleague this shortly before he died.
“ _____ _______ _______ _______.”
15. It wasn’t until Mendel was dead that people believed the finding of his experiment. In
1900, three European scientists rediscovered his work and set off a scientific explosion.
The field of Genetics was born and Mendel is considered to be what?
16. What seven pairs of contrasting traits did Mendel use in his pea experiment?
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
f.
g.
17. Mendel called traits that disappeared ________________.
18. Mendel called traits that did appear ________________.
19. Through his experiment, Mendel found there were 3 ________yellow peas to _______
green pea.
20. The biggest biological discovery since Mendel took place in 1953. What did scientists
discover?