Lesson 4 – What are Heredity, Instincts, and Learned Behaviors?
We explored characteristics of plants and animals that are inherited. We learned that traits are features such as brown eyes and the passing of traits from parents to offspring is heredity. Then we learned that plants also have inherited traits such as petal color. We learned that living things contain chemical instructions for their traits that are called genes. These genes are found inside cells. Half of the genes that we inherit come from our father and the other half from our mother. Then we explored characteristics that can be effected by the environment. Our height is controlled by genes but also by our environment. We learned that if we do not eat a healthy diet with nutritious food we might not grow as tall as we could. Next we learned that animal development is influenced by the environment too. If a tadpole’s pond starts to dry up it will undergo metamorphosis at a faster rate and become an adult frog quicker than a tadpole in a deep pond.