The purpose of the Peanut Lab is to show that peanuts, just like people, possess many different characteristic traits.
A bag of peanuts with shells. Lots of people (The more people you have, the better this lab will work)
Have each person in the room take a peanut that is not cracked. Tell everyone to study their peanut for a minute or two, for they will have to be able to indentify and retrieve their peanut from a pile of peanuts. Next, have each person bring their peanut up and put it on a table. Mix the peanuts around a little bit and have the participants come up and get their peanut. The students should find it relatively easy to find their particular peanut, for peanuts all have unique looking characteristics - just like people.
What characteristics did you observe? What made your peanut easy to identify? Catorgorize each of the different trait that peanuts have. Take a survey in the class to find out how many of the peanuts had the different traits. (You can get into a discussion on dominant and recessive genes. What characteristics do people have that make them different from other people?
The students should have discovered that there are many traits that a peanut can have. They should also begen to see that some traits are more prevalent than other traits. They will see that people also possess many traits.