HEREDITY

Why we look alike or different

HEREDITY

Heredity is what we inherit from our parents. It is what makes us look like our parents or grandparents.

Heredity is what plants or animals inherit from their “parents” also. It is not just a human trait!

HEREDITY

Do you look like your mother or father? Do people mix you up with your brother or sister? People usually do look like their relatives in some ways. They have a “family resemblance.”

HEREDITY

Other animals, and plants, too, have a family resemblance. Two German shepherd parents have German shepherd puppies. Two poodles will have baby poodles. And two robins will have baby robins.

HEREDITY

How is a grandfather’s nose or a mother’s red hair passed along to a daughter or grandson? How are these traits inherited? Through something called genes.

HEREDITY

Once, long ago, there lived a man named Gregor Mendel. He was a monk who lived in Austria. He wanted to know why plants and animals looked alike. He found out that there are traits that are passed on from parents to children.

HEREDITY

Mr. Mendel grew pea plants. He chose tall ones and short ones. He crossed, or mated, the tall and the short ones with each other. He put the pollen of one plant on the other.

HEREDITY

He found out that only tall plants grew from these. When he mated these plants with each other, 3 out of 4 turned out tall and the last one was short! The short-plant trait had come back.

HEREDITY

Mr. Mendel tried this experiment with different colored flowers and found out that 3 out of 4 were one color, and the last one was the other color.

HEREDITY

He figured out that each plant has two genes. One was a tall gene and one was a short gene. Some plants turned out tall and some short because of these genes.

HEREDITY

Even though these plants looked alike, they still turned out slightly different from each other because of their genes. Genes are found in a cell nucleus (center part)and are used to create each of the new plant’s characteristics.

HEREDITY

How do some of us get to be boys, and others, girls? Through the genes. Genes enable us to be boys and girls and they also help us to look like our mothers or fathers.

HEREDITY

Because of Mr. Mendel’s work, we now know how each of us is put together and how we turn out looking so much like one or both of our parents.