Gregor Mendel

My name is Gregor Mendel. in 1851 I was a young priest from a monastery in Europe, and I studied science in the University of Vienna. About 2 years later I began teaching at a high school nearby and returned to the monastery. I cared for the monastery's garden, and that was where I made a huge discovery using pea plants.

I decided to study peas at the monastery's garden, and made a big discovery. These pea plants were very easy to study because so many traits, but they exist in only two forms. An example of this is the height of the pea plants. They are either tall or short, but not medium height. I decided to cross plants with a trait in the opposite form, like tall plants and short plants. I crossed two purebred plants, one tall and one short. I called these the P generation. I called the offspring from this the first filial, or F1 generation. I found that all of the off springs were tall. This was interesting because one of the parent plants were short, but none of the offsprings were short. I did this again with the F1 Generation, and there was 1 short plant and 3 tall plants in this generation. I called it the F2 Generation.

What I did was important to almost the whole world. I discovered dominant and recessive alleles, even though it was through pea plants. Many scientists have continued on my work today.