Ideas on seeds for a experiment for schools across Europe

[TomSimpson]

I am currently developing a schools resource on Mendelian Genetics where school pupils grow some seeds to a point where they can observe a Mendelian trait. The pupils can then enter their results into a Europe-wide database and hopefully watch as these results tend to the appropriate ratios. To that end, does anyone know of an easy-to-see trait in a plant that could be grown quickly and easily from seed?

Many Thanks

Tom Simpson

[AstusAleator]

My advice would be to research Mendel's experiments on peas. He looked at many traits such as floristic characteristics, seed pods, etc. Reproducing his experiments in one form or another would probably be very useful as an object lesson.

[MJD]

Bean & Corn Seed Lab
http://mattdegasperi.synthasite.com/res ... eedlab.doc

Oat Seed Lab
http://www.indiana.edu/~ensiweb/lessons/oat.lesson.html

[JackBean]

I think Arabidopsis could be usefull. It's a little bit hard to work with it, but it grows fast and for sure you can get lot of seeds of different phenotypes from www.arabipsis.org
(also you must consider, whether these phenotypes won't influence each other;)