Do your fingerprints come more from your mother or your father? Every person has a unique fingerprint pattern. Each print falls into a type like loops or whorls or arches. Genetics (the study of inherited traits) plays a role in which type you get.
You collect fingerprints from families by rolling each finger in ink on a plexiglass slab. Then you press each finger onto a card. You label every print by its pattern type and compare across each family.
The results may surprise you. In this study, fathers matched their children slightly more often. However, the margin was small. Further testing with more families would help confirm whether one parent truly dominates.
Hypothesis
The hypothesis is that the male parent affects the offspring's fingerprints more than the female parent.
Genetics plays a role in the physical traits you display. Every person has a unique fingerprint, yet each print falls into a type — loops, whorls, or arches. Collecting fingerprints from families lets you observe whether children and parents share the same pattern type. In this study, fathers matched their children slightly more often.
Every person has a unique fingerprint pattern, but those ridge shapes fall into shared types like loops, whorls, or arches. Genetics plays a role in which type you get, so comparing family members reveals how these ridge patterns pass from parent to child. Collecting prints with ink on a card lets you label each one by its pattern type and track inheritance across a family.
Traits passed from parents differ from person to person, and fingerprints show this clearly. Each print falls into a type like loops, whorls, or arches, and these types run in families — yet every person's print is still unique. Collect prints from family members, label each type, and compare how they differ.
Method & Materials
You will spread ink on a plexiglas slab, roll your fingers in the ink, and then roll them on a card. You will then study each print and label it with a pattern type.
You will need ink, a roller, a plexiglas slab, and a card.
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The results of the experiment showed that the male parent affects the fingerprints of the offspring more than the female parent. However, further testing is needed to determine if there is a tendency toward fingerprint dominance by one sex or the other.
Why do this project?
This science project is interesting because it helps us understand why our fingerprints look the way they do.
Also Consider
Experiment variations to consider include testing different family members, such as grandparents, aunts, and uncles, or testing different age groups.
Full project details
Additional information and source material for this project are available below.
