Coin Sex Lab Conclusion

In this lab, we flipped coins to simulate the processes of meiosis and gene recombination. The coins served as models for a variety of concepts including: sex of offspring, simple autosomal dominance, x-linked recessive alleles, and dihybrid crosses.
Coins are good analogies for genetic concepts because they can be used to visualize probability and gene inheritance. For example, flipping one coin could decide between X and Y, while another is labeled X on both sides and therefore has no probability of passin on a Y chromosome. Another good example is that if both parents are heterozygous, each coin could be labeled with "X" and "x". Four flips of each coin together would show one possible inheritance scenario.
For the dihybrid cross we had 11 brown hair brown eyes (instead of 9), 2 blond hair brown eyes (instead of 3), 3 brown hair blue eyes (same as expected 3), and 0 blond hair blue eyes (instead of 1). I'd say that these results aren't that unexpected because the maximum deviation was by 2. The reason why the results aren't the same as what the Punnett square tells us is that it is all about probability. It is completely possible, although highly unlikely, that someone has 20 kids and they all have blond hair and blue eyes. Probability would dictate that only about 1 of these kids should have those traits, but this chance is a chance; not an undeniable fact. Punnett squares serve as models for the most likely situations and genotypes that probability models, not as the genotype combination that will be present every time.
The limit of probability is that it can never tell us exactly what babies will have what traits and how many of those babies we will have. It can give us a most likely number that is found if you take an average of those crosses, but will not tell us what will always happen in our situation.
Understanding that I can predict the possibilities of my child's traits means that I can only hope that my child will have certain beneficial characteristics and won't have any disorders. If I really wanted, I could create a monohybrid punnett square for my parents and wife's parents to figure out whether we are homozygous or heterozygous. We could then do a cross of these to find the traits our child may have.