Gregor Mendel Research Paper

Born Johann Mendel in 1822 in Austria, Gregor Mendel grew up on a low-income farm with a father who tinkered with breeding apple trees. During his youth, Mendel was sent to receive his schooling in Troppau. His studies put a huge financial strain on his entire family. Mendel would tutor in his spare time, but due to the language barrier, could not find enough work. Mendel suffered from depression and spent time at his home in bed and struggled to finish his schooling. His father had been crippled by a falling tree two years before and could barely work the farm. Mendel could not bring himself to watch his father struggle, so he stayed in his bed for about one year. When his older sister’s brother finally took over the family farm, lessening Mendel’s mental burden. His younger sister Theresia gave him money from her dowry so that he would be able to finish school. Following this education, he studied for two years at Philosophical Institute of the University of Olmütz. Upon graduation, he took the route young men who are financially strained usually take and joined the Augustinian Order at St. Thomas Monastery (Henig, 2000).

It was from these instructors that he learned the methods that prepared him for his experiment. In 1856, he began pea plant experiments with hybridization in order to find a more accurate conception of inheritance. At the time, the common scientific opinion of hereditary inheritance was that the offspring would receive an equal copy of the parent’s “essence,” similar to how we know that yellow and blue make green. In order to combat this theory, Mendel chose seven easily distinguishable character traits with opposite examples of