Mitosis and Meiosis Bio Lab

Results: Somatic cells multiply through mitosis resulting in diploid, identical cells and meiosis provides for genetic variability along with haploid daughter cells, gametes, or sex cells. Most of the cells observed on the root tip were in interphase. Table 3.1 helped analyze the number of cells that are going through each phase of the cell cycle and helped estimate the amount of time it took for each cell to complete that phase. Table 3.2 compared and contrasted mitosis and meiosis.

Conclusion: There are five stages in Mitosis, which I observed from exercise 3A: Interphase, Prophase, Metaphase, Anaphase and Telophase. From the table, I concluded that interphase is the longest phase while Anaphase and Telophase are the shortest. From 3B, I learned that meiosis goes through two cycles: Meiosis I and Meiosis II. Genetic variation is accounted for in Meiosis I due to crossing over. No formal hypothesis was made due to the fact that this lab was a simulation and observation of prior knowledge. The lab did not go as expected for prophase was supposed to be the second longest phase in exercise 3A but Metaphase ended up with the higher percentage (Table 3.1). Because this lab was solely based on observation, there was little space for error, but as mentioned above, metaphase ended up with the higher percentage than prophase. This error resulted from the sample that we had and was not a human error. The frames observed, by chance, did not have many cells going through prophase and it should have hypothetically. Some students ended up with more telophase than expected and some ended up with the right information. There is nothing to improve but I was able to practice using a