The Same and Different You and Me

MS-LS3-1 - Develop and use a model to describe why structural changes to genes (mutations) located on chromosomes may affect proteins and may result in harmful, beneficial, or neutral effects to the structure and function of the organism.
MS-LS3-2 - Develop and use a model to describe why asexual reproduction results in offspring with identical genetic information and sexual reproduction results in offspring with genetic variation.

Learning Targets

  • Begin to understand that genetic traits of organisms can be passed to offspring

Success Criteria

  • identify the traits of an organism.
  • identify the distinction between inherited and acquired traits.
  • analyze data about the traits of an organism.

Questions to Ponder

  • What is one thing that is similar between you and a family member? (anything you can think of)
  • How did you get this trait?

Characteristics of Organisms

When scientists talk about the characteristics of an organism, they use the word trait. If there are any differences in a trait it is called a variation. For example, most buildings have at least 4 walls and a roof. Some buildings have many doors, and some have a lot of windows. The trait is that 4 walls and a roof make a building. The variation is all of the differences in various buildings based on how they are used.

During this section we will learn about how we can distinguish one organism from another and how those organisms can be different from each other.

Observe the Following Organisms

  1. What characteristics or structures do any of these organisms have in common?
  2. What structures do they have that allow them to get what they need to survive?
  3. How are the birds’ mouths different? Why?
  4. How are the plants similar or different?
  5. If all of these organisms have different characteristics, how do they get the structures

Questions to Consider

  1. How were you able to distinguish the birds from the fish? The plants from the birds?
  2. By looking at the projected images again, what could you predict about other plants? Other fish?
  3. How do you know they will be the same?
  4. How could you distinguish a human from these other organisms?

Traits of You and Me

  • We will collect and analyze class data on selected human traits in order to determine if there are any patterns.

As a Team...

  1. Meet with your team and brainstorm a list of human traits. Remember that in a brainstorm session, you record everyone’s ideas with no comment or discussion.
  2. Discuss your team’s list. Decide if each item is a human trait. Cross off any that your team decides is not a trait.
  3. Record the traits that you have agreed are human traits in the chart. With your team, list possible variations in the individual variation column.

Look at your list of human traits.

  • Decide whether each trait is inherited, acquired, or both.
  • Place that trait in the appropriate column on the Human Traits Chart. You may have to add additional rows.

Earlobes: Attached or Detached?

Thumb: Right or Left Overlap

  1. As a team, select two inherited traits from the list you generated and two from the inherited traits listed above.
  2. Create a table to collect data on on the number of people with the different variations of each trait. We will use this table to create a graph.
  3. Tally how many people in your classroom have each variation of the trait and record it in the data table.
  4. From the class data, use Google Sheets to generate a graph on each of the four traits. (use the link to the right to learn how to create a graph)
  5. Meet again with the whole class and combine your group data to get a number that shows how many people in your class have that trait. Then record the total number from the class in the class data column.

Back to teams...

  • identify the traits of an organism.
  • identify the distinction between inherited and acquired traits.
  • analyze data about the traits of an organism.

Analyzing the Data

MS-LS3-1 - Develop and use a model to describe why structural changes to genes (mutations) located on chromosomes may affect proteins and may result in harmful, beneficial, or neutral effects to the structure and function of the organism.
MS-LS3-2 - Develop and use a model to describe why asexual reproduction results in offspring with identical genetic information and sexual reproduction results in offspring with genetic variation.

Learning Targets

  • Begin to understand that genetic traits of organisms can be passed to offspring

Success Criteria

  • identify the traits of an organism.
  • identify the distinction between inherited and acquired traits.
  • analyze data about the traits of an organism.

Discuss as a team...

  • What trait do you think has the most variations?
  • What trait do you think has the least variations?

Presentation

Print a copy of your graphs using these instructions. Share your team's graphs with another team. Prepare a brief presentation to share the other team's findings. Be prepared to display the graphs.

Answer the following questions for each trait...

  • What is your trait?
  • What are the variations?
  • Describe the results of your data.

Reading

Lesson 1 Reading One: Where Did You Get Those Eyes? pg 8-11

Back to teams...

  • identify the traits of an organism.
  • identify the distinction between inherited and acquired traits.
  • analyze data about the traits of an organism.

Nature vs. Nurture or Inherited vs. Acquired

  • Are you born with certain preferences that are specific to your gender?
  • How do you know?
  • Watch this video to see two different experiments that were conducted to find an answer to this question.

Quiz Time!

Heredity