Now that you've had a chance to learn some vocabulary words, it's time to see them in action.
Watch this animation to find out more about how DNA, genes and chromosomes make up a genome, which as you've heard by now, can be thought of us as life's instruction manual. As you're viewing the segment, look out for definitions and descriptions of glossary words. In addition to nucleotides, DNA and gene, the terms chromosome, proteins and genome will show up.
Stop the animation at any time, watch it again, or read the transcript.
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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.
In the Notes box below, list the following concepts from simplest to most complex: