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instructables

Science City at Home

Create a Genetic Trait Bracelet

Why do you think your hair is curly or straight? Or if you have blue or brown eyes? What do you think makes you, well….you?

Genes are the code in each of our cells in our bodies that help decide on our different traits such as the color of our eyes, how big your feet will be, and a lot of other things that make up you! For this project we will be looking at our traits and that of our family to make a genetic trait bracelet to show how unique we are. Genetic traits can be dominant or recessive You have two copies of each gene, inherited from your mother and father, each copy can be different.

For example, one copy may give you blue eyes, while another copy may give you brown. So what color are your eyes if you have both the brown and the blue eye color gene? Brown. This is because brown is dominant. Dominant means one version of the gene will overcome or trump the other. Brown is dominant over blue, so if you have genes for blue and brown eyes, your eyes would be brown. We write out traits using capital letters for dominant genes and lower case for recessive. So for eye color, brown would “B” and blue would be “b”. People have two versions of each gene from their parents, so you can have BB, Bb, or bb. Only bb would give you blue eyes. BB or Bb would both be brown.

Supplies:

● Yarn or pipe cleaners

● 2 Colors of Beads to represent traits- You will need 2 different colors of beads for this project to represent dominant and recessive traits, the colors in the instructions are just suggestions, you can use whatever colors you prefer, as long as you decide before you begin.

● Two larger or metallic beads to mark off the beginning and end of the bracelet.

● Scissors

● Trait Handout

● Mirror