Final answer:
Dr. Beals' experiment aimed to understand inheritance by working with pea plants over several years, thereby contributing to biology's understanding of genetic mechanisms and proving the significance of replicable research experiments.
Step-by-step explanation:
The purpose of Dr. Beals' experiment was to investigate the principles of inheritance using pea plants. This experiment, which encompassed work with almost 30,000 pea plants over several years, was seminal in understanding how traits are passed from one generation to another. Pea plants were chosen due to their numerous distinctive traits and the ease with which they can be crossbred. The significance of such an experiment in a mini project would be to provide crucial evidence supporting or refuting a specific hypothesis related to plant growth and its underlying genetic mechanisms. By observing patterns of inheritance, conclusions could be drawn that have wider implications for the field of biology. Replicating an experiment like this in other studies reinforces the reliability of the findings and contributes to the scientific body of knowledge.