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Abstract Do children think of genetic inheritance as deterministic or probabilistic? In two novel tasks, children viewed the eye colors of animal parents and judged and selected possible phenotypes of offspring. Across three studies (N = 353, 162 girls, 172 boys, 2 non‐binary; 17 did not report gender) with predominantly White U.S. participants collected in 2019–2021, 4‐ to 12‐year‐old children showed a probabilistic understanding of genetic inheritance, and they accepted and expected variability in the genetic inheritance of eye color. Children did not show a mother bias but they did show two novel biases: perceptual similarity and sex‐matching. These results held for unfamiliar animals and several physical traits (e.g., eye color, ear size, and fin type), and persisted after a lesson. 

Two foundational concepts in biology education are 1) offspring are not identical to their parents, and 2) organisms undergo changes throughout their lives. These concepts are included in both international and U.S. curricular standards. Research in psychology has shown that children often have difficulty understanding these concepts, as they are inconsistent with their intuitive theories of the biological world. Additionally, prior research suggests that diagrams are commonly used in instruction and that their features influence student learning. Given this prior work, we explored the characteristics of life cycle diagrams and discuss possible implications for student learning. We examined 75 life cycle diagrams from books, including five biology or general science textbooks and 25 specialized trade books focusing on biology for children. We also examined 633 life cycle diagrams from a publicly available online database of science diagrams. Most diagrams failed to show any within-species variability. Additionally, many diagrams had perceptually rich backgrounds, which prior research suggests might hinder learning. We discuss how the design characteristics of diagrams may reinforce students’ intuitive theories of biology, which might make it difficult for students to understand key biological concepts in the future.