Final answer:
The F1 offspring from crossing true-breeding green seed plants with true-breeding yellow seed plants are expected to be 100% yellow since yellow is dominant. To estimate the percentage of yellow peas using a 90% confidence interval, calculate the sample proportion of yellow peas and apply the appropriate z-score to compute the confidence interval.
Step-by-step explanation:
A genetic experiment involving Mendelian genetics with pea plants typically expects certain offspring patterns based on dominant and recessive traits. When true-breeding plants with green seeds are crossed with true-breeding plants with yellow seeds, the expected F1 offspring would be 100 percent yellow seeds, since yellow seed color is dominant over green. If we refer back to Mendel's law, the F2 generation from self-pollinating the F1 offspring would follow a phenotypic ratio of 3 yellow:1 green. This can be approximated by probability when using a large sample size. For the student's experiment which yielded 417 green peas and 154 yellow peas, a 90% confidence interval to estimate the percentage of yellow peas can be constructed using the formula for a proportion's confidence interval, which is p ± z*sqrt((p(1-p))/n). Here, p is the sample proportion of yellow peas, z is the z-score corresponding to the 90% confidence level, and n is the total number of samples.
To calculate the confidence interval:
- Calculate the sample proportion (p) of yellow peas: p = 154/(417+154)
- Find the z-score for a 90% confidence interval. The z-score for a 90% confidence interval is approximately 1.645.
- Compute the standard error (SE) using the formula SE = sqrt((p(1-p))/n).
- Calculate the margin of error (ME) using the formula ME = z*SE.
- Construct the confidence interval using the formula p ± ME.