Selective Breeding

Lab Brief #7

🎯 Your mission

Understand the idea. Then look for it everywhere.

⚡ The twist

Nature loves to surprise the careful watcher.

What you'll learn

Selective breeding is when humans choose organisms with desired traits to reproduce. Dog breeds, crop varieties, and livestock have been developed through thousands of years of selective breeding.

Key words

trait
A feature of a living thing, like eye color or height.

Make a hypothesis first

Before you start: write down what you think will happen, and why.

Say your guess out loud — then find out if you were right.

Step 1 of 4 · Read

Look at the vocabulary words and write a definition for each in your own words.

Step 2 of 4 · Do

Survey your class for a genetic trait (attached vs. free earlobes, tongue rolling, hitchhiker's thumb). Create a bar graph of the results.

Step 3 of 4 · Observe

Draw a detailed diagram of what you observe.

Step 4 of 4 · Record

Write a conclusion: what did your results show? Did they match your prediction?

Question 1 of 3

What is selective breeding?

How sure are you?😐 maybe

Question 2 of 3

What is natural selection?

How sure are you?😐 maybe

Question 3 of 3

How many chromosomes do human body cells have?

How sure are you?😐 maybe

Mind = blown

🔬 The more you look, the more nature shows you.

Nice work!

You got 0 of 3 right.

Next: DNA: The Double Helix All lessons

🎯

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✨ More to explore

🌍 Where you see this in real life: This shows up in your everyday life more than you'd think.

🏆 Stretch challenge (try it this week): Try one experiment in real life this week — even a tiny one.

👨‍👩‍👧 For the dinner table: “What's the most surprising thing you learned today?”

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Selective Breeding

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