Life Science Grade 12 Practical Investigation 2021 Memo I hope this memo finds you well and prepared for our upcoming practical investigation in Life Science. Below, I’ve outlined some key points to keep in mind as you conduct your investigation:
Investigation 1: Surveying Human Characteristics Task Investigation
Conduct a survey of the occurrence/frequency of dominant and recessive phenotypes for each of three traits/ characteristics (as shown in the pictures below) among the learners in your school.
- This task must be done individually.
- This practical must be completed at school.
Questions
List any FOUR planning steps for this investigation:
Answers from the memo:
- Seek permission to conduct the investigation.
- Decide how the learners are to be selected for your sample.
- Identify the 20 learners who will form a part of the sample.
- Arrange a date/time/venue for surveying the different characteristics.
- Design a table for recording information.
- Study the different phenotypes for each characteristic in order to correctly identify them.
Formulate a hypothesis for the frequency of tongue-rollers as compared to non-rollers in your school:
Answers from the memo:
- There are more learners in the school that are tongue rollers than non-rollers
- There are more learners in the school that are non-rollers than tongue rollers
- The number of learners in the school that are tongue rollers is equal to the number ofnon-rollers
Practical Task 2 – Simulating natural selection
Simulate ‘natural selection’ using a paper model.
- This task must be done in pairs but the questions must be answered individually.
- This practical must be completed at school.
Background information A simulation allows one to demonstrate something that might sometimes be dangerous or that might sometimes require a lot of time, quickly and in a simple and safe way, using models. The different parts that comprise the paper model in this task represent different components in nature. The sheet of newspaper and the sheet of white paper represent two different environmental conditions. The circles cut from white paper and from newspaper represent the different appearances/phenotypes of different individuals of the same species.
Downloadable Tasks Memo
Complete Memo with all questions and answers can be found on the pdf document below: