Genetics & Heredity
📋 What it is
Traits pass from parents to offspring through genes carried in DNA.
🗣️ Coach says
Why do you look a bit like your relatives? Genes. DNA is an instruction book inside your cells, and you inherit a mix — half from each parent. Genes decide traits like eye colour. Some are “dominant” (show up easily), some “recessive” (hide unless doubled up).
🧠 Memory hook
DNA = instruction book; genes = the recipes; you inherit a mix of both parents’.
😂 Giggle
Why did the white blood cell get a promotion?
It always went above and beyond to fight for the body!
😲 Whoa!
If you unwound all the DNA in ONE of your cells, it would stretch about 2 metres — and all your cells’ DNA together could reach the Sun and back many times.
✅ Quick check: Where are the instructions for your inherited traits stored?
Say your answer out loud first — then reveal.
In your genes, which are made of DNA inside the nucleus of your cells.
Genes (segments of DNA) carry the coded instructions for traits.
🧪 Try it! (2 minutes)
List three traits you share with a relative (eye colour, hair type…). Each one rode in on a gene.