Variation

High school (ages 12+)
Thinking & Learning

Name:

Date:

Step 1 · Read the article

Open the article and read it at the level above. Then answer the questions below in your own words.

https://smallwhale.org/articles/variation

Write what each word means, using the article.

Do not copy the article. Write two things you learned, the way you would explain them to a friend.

Answers below are taken from the article’s stored facts, so they match what the student read.

1. What is the phenotypic expression?Observable traits resulting from genotype and environmental interactions
2. What is the role in natural selection?Provides the heritable differences upon which differential survival and reproduction act
3. What is variation in living things?Variation means that people, animals, or plants can be a little different from each other. These differences can be in their genes, how they look, or how they act.
4. How do mutations make new differences?Mutations are tiny changes in the DNA that can happen by accident. They add new genes or change old ones, giving new traits to the next generation.

Allele: One of two or more alternative forms of a gene that arise by mutation and are found at the same place on a chromosome.
Genotype: The genetic makeup of an organism; the combination of alleles it possesses for a particular gene or set of genes.
Phenotype: The set of observable characteristics of an individual resulting from the interaction of its genotype with the environment.
Epigenetics: The study of heritable changes in gene expression that do not involve changes to the underlying DNA sequence.