Freckle finders Activity

Freckle finders Activity Card Aunt Stella Cosmic and Gem are drawing self-portraits. Cosmic: ‘I like your freckles Gem, I wonder why I don’t have any?’ Gem: ‘I like your curly hair Cosmic, I wonder why my hair is straight?’ Cosmic: ‘My mum says I get my curly hair from her.’ Gem: ‘How did she give it to you?’ Aunt Stella: ‘She gave it to him through DNA. Our DNA can influence lots of things, like our eye colour, hair colour, skin tone and face shape. We inherit our DNA from our parents, so some features are passed down from generation to generation.’ Gem: ‘Are freckles and curly hair influenced by our DNA as well? Cosmic Your challenge Find out what different features people in your class have. Do their parents or grandparents share the same features? Which features do you think might be influenced by our DNA and which ones are not? Choosing who to select for your survey is called sampling. In your group, plan how you would carry out a bigger survey to get a more reliable result. You will need to decide how many people to ask and how you will choose them. Gem

Discuss Why do some people look alike and some people look different? Do you share any features with members of your family, for example, the same hair colour or eye colour? How reliable are your results? Are you confident that you’d get the same result if you asked more people? Do you need to survey everyone? If not, how would you choose who to ask? Do you think age, gender and ethnicity would affect your results? Getting started What features will you investigate in your survey? I think the more people we ask the better our answer will be. Test your ideas For the results to be reliable we’d need to ask everyone. I think it is important to make sure you ask the same number of boys and girls. How will you record your findings? Could you make a table or a graph to show your results? Maybe you could use a table like this one: Person 1 Person 2 Share your ideas Which features were most and least common in the class? Did most people share their features with some family members? Were there any features that were not shared with any family members? Watch out! Child Mother Father Grandmother Grandfather Eye colour Blue Brown Blue Blue Brown Hair colour Skin colour Eye colour Hair colour Skin colour Some people might not feel comfortable answering questions about their family and genetics. How would you make sure individuals can’t be identified in the data you collect? Extra things to do EXAMPLE Why not investigate other characteristics that are not visible. For example, some people taste broccoli differently to others, because of their DNA! British Science Association Registered Charity No. 212479 and SC039236