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 BBBbbb

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!