Learning from the Fossil Record
Grade 8 Science
Name: Caroline B.
Date: 1/3/10
Genes and Chromosomes Justified True or False Worksheet
Statement / PRETrue or False / PRE
Justification-
Why did you choose T or F? / POST
True or False / POST
Justification-
Why did you choose T or F?
The instructions that determine an organism’s traits are found in an organism’s DNA. / True / I chose true because when we learned about living systems we learned that the DNA is instructions for each cell on what they do. That is why each cell has a certain structure. / True / I chose this because I know that the instructions to determine an organism’s traits are inside the genes, and the genes are located inside the DNA. This means that the answer is technically true.
Genes are found in DNA, which are found in chromosomes, which are found in a cell’s nucleus. / False / I think that chromosomes are found in DNA, not DNA found in chromosomes. / True / I chose this because when we went to the website for the Explore Heredity assignment we saw that inside the boy’s arm were cells. Then we went to the cell’s nucleus, which contained chromosomes, which was made up of DNA to hold the genes.
Each trait of an organism is determined by a gene. / True / I think that each gene has some “instructions” on what each organism should be like. / True / I chose this because in the part about “What’s the Big Idea About Genetics” on the website Mr. Bormann gave us it stated that the parts of our cells that determine eye color or hair color are the genes.
Humans have 46 chromosomes, half come from each parent. / True / I remember this from a video we watched. Except not sure if the amount is correct. / True / I chose this because we have been constantly talking about how many chromosomes we have in each cell, and in the Extend Chromosomes assignment we had to answer this question, and I got it right.
The cells in a person’s eyes only have the eye color gene, all other cells do not have that gene. / True / Only the eye cells will have that color gene, and no other cell needs it.
I learned it from a video in class. / False / I chose this because we talked about the cells in every part of our body having all the chromosomes in each cell, but the eye color trait will only read the eye color chromosome for information in a person’s eyes. This is because that is all the information that it needs. We also talked about this in the review of our homework on the Explore Heredity document.
Only some organism’s cells contain chromosomes, genes, and DNA. / False / All organisms’ cells have genes to have them know what to “look like” and how to do their “jobs”. / False / I chose this because every organism needs chromosomes to hold the DNA, to contain the genes so the organism’s traits can know what they should look like.
We have two genes for each trait in our cells but each gene might have different instructions for the same trait. / True / Because one is from my mom and one from my dad, and their bodies might do the same job a little different than each other. / True / I chose this because we do have two genes for each trait. One from my mom and one from my dad. And these genes might have different instructions because if it is for eye color my mom might have green eyes, so the gene’s instructions’ is to have green eyes, and my dad’s might be different.
Genes contain information that can be passed from parent to offspring. / True / Most genes are passed to an offspring to a parent. I know this from further knowledge. / True / I chose this because when an egg and sperm are connected together the genes from the sperm and egg are copied exactly to the offspring. This means that the information from the genes inside the sperm and egg are also going to be passed to the offspring.
Inherited characteristics are called traits and are passed from parent to offspring. / True / I learned this from sitting in class, and paying attention. / False / I chose this because we inherit two genes from our mother and father combined to go under the category of the “hair color trait”.
Reproduction does not play a role in inheriting traits. / False / Reproduction is when you inherit traits. I just know from further knowledge. / False / I chose this because reproduction is the whole reason why we inherit traits. Without reproduction the sperm and egg wouldn’t create an offspring with a copy of the sperm’s 23 chromosomes, and the egg wouldn’t create a copy of it’s 23 chromosomes.