One day, while Susie and Carmen were in the backyard, they came across some flowers. "Woah! Look at this, Susie!" Carmen exclaimed. Susie and Carmen stared in awe at the colorful flowers.

Just then, a strange woman appeared from the trees. She was dressed in purple. "Hello! I'm Mendelian Woman!" The girls were shocked. "Mendelian? What's that?" asked Carmen. The woman gasped. "You don't know? That's what makes these beautiful flowers different colors!" Carmen and Susie were still confused. "Here, let's talk about it." the woman said.

"Mendelian inheritance, or genetics, is a set of rules about genetic inheritance, how we inherit certain things and traits. Like, how you got your eye color." Mendelian Woman said, Carmen and Susie nodded. "Why is it called Mendelian?" Susie asked. "It was named after the man who discovered it, Gregor Mendel!" Mendelian Woman replied.

"Gregor Mendel showed how traits were passed on by doing experiments with pea plants!" Mendelian Woman smiled, Susie and Carmen laughed. "Pea plants?" they both giggled, to which Mendelian Woman nodded in reply.

"Now now, let's explain this Mendelian inheritance!" Mendelian Woman said.

"Mendelian traits are physical characteristics passed down from parents based on dominant and recessive alleles, and Gregor Mendel came up with some laws for this." Susie and Carmen nodded, then said, "what laws?"

"Good question! The law of segregation, the law of independent assortment, and the law of dominance." Mendelian Woman replied.

LAW OF SEGREGATION:

states that allele pairs separate or segregate during gamete formation.

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Y

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"So.. If I had RR, it would be R+R?" asked Carmen, "Exactly!" Mendelian Woman smiled. Susie then said, "What if I had Rr? That would be R+r right?" Mendelian Woman smiled and nodded. "That is the first law!" she exclaimed, "now to the second one!"