This lesson introduced you to DNA, genes, and the genome; what they are, how they function, and the role they play in storing and transferring information. You took notes on almost every page of the lesson, and it's time to use them, as well as other information presented, to compose your own multimedia project, or write a final essay, in which you describe and summarize all that sound-wave knowledge you've collected.
As you compose your project, try to think of ways in which genes, DNA and the genome relate to one another. You might also want to describe, either graphically or in writing, the central reason or reasons that, while all humans have their own unique traits, we are also all more than 99% alike.
If you create a multimedia project that requires a social-media, video or audio platform that is not directly offered by this lesson, you will need to post it to a file-sharing site (Dropbox, Google Drive and Microsoft Teams are examples) and then upload the link to the Write It plug-in. Here are some ideas for what you might want to do:
Use Organize It to outline your ideas. You can review your notes in “My Work” as well as any of the following videos and glossary terms.
| Keyboard Shortcut | Action |
|---|---|
| Space | Pause/Play video playback |
| Enter | Pause/Play video playback |
| m | Mute/Unmute video volume |
| Up and Down arrows | Increase and decrease volume by 10% |
| Right and Left arrows | Seek forward or backward by 5 seconds |
| 0-9 | Fast seek to x% of the video. |
| f | Enter or exit fullscreen. (Note: To exit fullscreen in flash press the Esc key. |
| c | Press c to toggle captions on or off |
The instruction manual for an organism has many parts. And learning "what does what" can get a tad confusing. Luckily life, and the instructions for it, are really well organized, from the more basic components (DNA) to the more complete set of instructions (genome).
It all starts with DNA, which is a molecule made up of four basic coding parts--kind of like an alphabet but with only four letters.
Those "letters" are arranged into genes--or "sentences." Each gene ("sentence") is an instruction to build a protein. Some sentences are short. Some are long. But each is a complete thought.
Those gene sentences are arranged into chromosomes, or in our analogy, "chapters."
And a collection of those chromosomes ("chapters") make up the genome, or the "complete instruction manual."
Some manuals have more chapters than others. You, for example, have 23 complete chapters. While a cucumber has 7, a chicken has 39.
And chapters are passed down from generation to generation. You received half a chapter from your mom and half from your dad.
So to keep with the analogy, your DNA, genes and chromosomes are a big part of the story of you.
| Keyboard Shortcut | Action |
|---|---|
| Space | Pause/Play video playback |
| Enter | Pause/Play video playback |
| m | Mute/Unmute video volume |
| Up and Down arrows | Increase and decrease volume by 10% |
| Right and Left arrows | Seek forward or backward by 5 seconds |
| 0-9 | Fast seek to x% of the video. |
| f | Enter or exit fullscreen. (Note: To exit fullscreen in flash press the Esc key. |
| c | Press c to toggle captions on or off |
Life is complicated. There are a ton of different parts, doing a ton of different things. But those parts and things are all referencing a set of instructions that are unique to each organism. And those sets of instructions are DNA.
This little helix is a super special molecule that is found in the nucleus of every cell in a living organism, from the most complicated (elephant) to the less complicated (single-cell organism).
DNA is a long, coiled set of basic "letters" that, when organized into sentences and chapters, make the instruction manual for an organism.
And those parts, which come by the millions, are the building blocks that make the cells, tissue, and organs of each living thing.
You have to to admit: that's a lot of potential for a single molecule.
| Keyboard Shortcut | Action |
|---|---|
| Space | Pause/Play video playback |
| Enter | Pause/Play video playback |
| m | Mute/Unmute video volume |
| Up and Down arrows | Increase and decrease volume by 10% |
| Right and Left arrows | Seek forward or backward by 5 seconds |
| 0-9 | Fast seek to x% of the video. |
| f | Enter or exit fullscreen. (Note: To exit fullscreen in flash press the Esc key. |
| c | Press c to toggle captions on or off |
In the organization of your instruction manual, genes play a huge part. Genes are stretches of DNA. They can be long or short, or somewhere in between, but all genes have a beginning, an end, and form a complete sentence, so to speak.
And what do those sentences say?
Genes are instructions on how to build proteins. Proteins are the physical worker bits that do all the heavy lifting in your cells--they are both the builders and the building blocks, the janitors, the operators, the emergency response team and much more. Bottom line, they are super important.
Beyond building blocks, genes also contain the instruction on when, how, and how much of a protein to make.
Different creatures have different genes, of course, but lots of our genes are similar. You and a chicken have similar basic structures. Similar organs made out of similar tissue made out of similar cells made out of similar proteins. In fact, you and a chicken are 60% identical, genetically speakiing. And when it comes to the genetic code of humans, we are all more than 99% identical. So even though we may look different, the code that we are built with, our genes, are more similar than they may seem.