1. Genetics Vocabulary
You need to know these!!!

2. TRAIT A distinguishing feature that a person has Examples: Brown hair
Freckles
Widow’s peak
Blue Eyes

3. GENE The chemical factors in your DNA that determine your traits
Genes for things give us codons which we use to make proteins and proteins help us express those traits!

4. ALLELE Each different copy of a gene
Examples: you get one allele from each parent
Blue eye allele from dad
Brown eye allele from mom

5. HOMOZYGOUS Both alleles from your parents are the same
Either both dominant (BB) or recessive (bb)

6. HETEROZYGOUS Alleles from your parent are different
Dad gives you a (B) and mom gives you a (b)

7. DOMINANT
A trait that will ALWAYS appear as long as there is one capital allele
Widow’s Peak (WW or Ww)
ALWAYS UPPER CASE LETTERS

8. RECESSIVE A trait that will only appear without the dominant allele
No widow’s peak (ww)
always lower case letters

9. GENOTYPE
The actual letters of the alleles an individual has BB Bb bb

10. PHENOTYPE
The way you physically look
Brown hair
Blue eyes
Freckles

11. HYBRID
Another term used to describe an organism that is heterozygous (Bb)

12. HEREDITY
The act of passing down traits (alleles) from parents to offspring

13. GENETICS
The study of heredity

14. SEGREGATION
Separation of alleles during gamete formation!

15. What are the three laws of genetics?
Mendel's studies yielded three "laws" of inheritance:
the law of dominance
the law of segregation
the law of independent assortment
Each of these can be understood through examining the process of meiosis.