VSVS Crazy traits

Vanderbilt Student Volunteer for Science

Lesson 1: Crazy traits

Group#25

ABOUT US

​Rachael Holly

Olivia Nixon

Saksena Saksham​

Sara Goodwich​

Monica Shen​

1 minute preparation

Write down your name on the nametag

Group with your partner (2 students)

10 groups in total​

Why do we look different from each other?

Why do we look different from each other?

​Because of differences in traits.

​

What is a trait?​

Traits usually differ.

• Do you have different eye colors from your partner?

• Do you have dimples?

• ​Can you roll your tongue?

• Traits are mostly physical characteristics or features that organisms have. (hair color)

• A​ trait can be passed on to the offspring.

• Why are there variations in a physical characteristic?

Traits

Traits are influenced by genes.

What is genes?​

• Genes carry information about traits which our parents have and pass down to us.

• Different combinations of genes influence an individual's features. These variations help make a person unique.​

Traits are not only influenced by genes.

What else?

Natural

Selection​

Darwin

• The process by which an organism's traits are passed on or selected based on their environment

• Some organisms have traits that allow them to better survive​ in their environment. For example, arctic fox is white. (Why?)

• The organisms with that gene will eventually out-produce, passing on the genes for their advantageous traits to their offspring.

• If a gene leads to a trait that gives a significant enough advantage to the organism, then the organisms with that gene will eventually out-populate those without the gene​

​"The Survival of the fittest"

It's time to make your own creatures!

Heredity, Gene, Dominant allele, Recessive allele

• Your traits are determined by the genes you inherit from your parents.

• For each trait, you get one gene from your mother and one gene from your father.

• Different forms of the same gene are called alleles.

• There are at least 2 alleles for each gene (one from each parent)

• The Dominant allele covers up the appearance of the Recessive allele.

• The traits you end up with are determined by two factors:

  1. the genotypes of your parents

  2. the allele from each parent you inherit

• Genotype is the combination of alleles that an individual has for a certain trait

• Phenotype is the physical expression of a genotype

​Building Hints:

1. The female bodies have the rounded part closest to the head. The male bodies have the pointed part closest to the head.

2. Put the skin on, then attach the head and leg.

3. Next find the correct foot, place the foot on the base and put the creature in the base.

4. Finish matching the correct traits with the body parts.

• ​Compare creatures with other creatures from the class.

• Do any of them look exactly alike? Why or why not? Remember that everyone started out with identical parents!

• Some look similar, but no two are alike. For two to look exactly alike, every single flip of both coins would have to be the same for both creatures.

• Report whether their creatures were male or female.  Write the totals on the board.

• What number would we have expected?

​Dominant	​Recessive
​short legs	​Long legs
​webbed feet	​talons
long arms	short arms
paws	claws
unibrow	separate eyebrow
trumpet beak	crusher beak
elephant ears	mouse ears
long antenna	short antenna
knob antenna shape	star antenna shape
no wings	wings

​Skin color and tails are examples of incomplete dominance and eye color is an example of codominance.

​As you finish with their creatures, take the creature apart and place each part on the parts sheet to make sure they return every part.​

clean-up