Today F1B and I spent a good deal of time loudly and earnestly debating the mechanics of Hershey Kiss matings and inter-candy marriage. I wasn't surprised to get some funny looks from fellow lab-mates, but I was happy to hear more than one commentator express regret at missing out on the fun.
I don't know how fun it actually was, but Operation Random Mating is almost Mission Accomplished. Albeit with a few casualties (40 alleles were consumed or had mysteriously migrated before the end of the exercise).
FIRST-IV-ers may recognize our shameless plagiarism of the Hershey Kiss/Tootsie Roll Hardy-Weinberg Equilibrium simulation, in which students are assigned a genotype at a two-allele candy locus. I really love the idea of making an abstract model a little more tangible, but I was worried all the 'mechanics' involved would suck up our very limited time. It turns out the mechanics were fine (our students are very efficient at mating), but it took a really long time for students to get their head around the maths. And this is very, very simple maths. I'm interested to see what happens when the activity continues tomorrow....
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