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This lesson will allow students to test a population to see if it meets Hardy Weinberg expectations starting with observed numbers of individuals in each genotype within the population. It will require them to calculate observed allele frequencies, expected genotype frequencies, and use a chi-square test to get (and then interpret) a p-value.

Students should have a basic knowledge of HWE and its equations (p+q=1 and p²+2pq+q²=1) and should know how to assign objects in R.

The lesson was designed as a part of an upper-level Ecological Genetics class, to be completed within a 45-minute class period as a complement to material about HWE.

By the end of this swirl lesson, students will be able to

1. Test a population for Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium when given observed genotype data (numbers of individuals of each genotype)
2. Use the chisq.test() function in R and interpret a p-value

• Final Swirl Lesson Plan - Hardy Weinberg Equilibrium.pdf(PDF | 15 KB)
• Hardy_Weinberg_Equilibrium.swc(SWC | 3 KB)
• License terms

Researchers should cite this work as follows:

• Cahill, A. E. (2020). Hardy-Weinberg Equilibrium: a swirl resource. Make Teaching with R in Undergraduate Biology Less Excruciating 2020, QUBES Educational Resources. doi:10.25334/ZQSM-5S44

  BibTex | EndNote

1. Activity Length
2. Advanced
3. Audience Level
4. Evolution
5. evolutionary ecology
6. Hardy-Weinberg
7. Homework
8. Instructional Setting
9. introductory
10. Lab
11. Lecture
12. Less than 1 hour
13. Majors
14. Online course
15. population genetics
16. R programming language
17. Swirl
18. Teaching material
19. Undergraduate