Final answer:
A child born to a mother with heterozygous curly hair (Cc) and a father with homozygous recessive straight hair (cc) has a 50% chance of having curly hair, which is the dominant trait, and a 50% chance of having straight hair.
Step-by-step explanation:
The question pertains to genetics and the inheritance of traits, in this case, the likelihood of a child inheriting curly hair when the mother is heterozygous for the trait and the father is homozygous recessive. The mother has one allele for curly hair (denoted as 'C') and one for straight hair ('c'), making her genotype 'Cc'. The father has two alleles for straight hair ('cc'). When we create a Punnett square to predict the possible genotypes of their offspring, there is a 50% chance (1 out of 2) that the child would be heterozygous ('Cc') and therefore exhibit curly hair, which is the dominant trait. The other 50% chance is that the child would inherit two alleles for straight hair ('cc'), resulting in straight hair.
It's important to note that even though the probability can be calculated, each child is an independent event when it comes to genetic inheritance. Hence, while the calculated probability provides an expectation based on Mendelian genetics, the actual outcome for each child might vary due to randomness in the segregation of alleles during gamete formation and fertilization.