Don’t Hate on the Trait

Think about your house and all the buildings around your town; they are all made up of the same water pipes, roofs, different rooms, and thousands of wooden boards. On the other hand, they are all different with their different designs and details. People are built differently too, just like the buildings. For example, the people at your school might all have different eye colours, hair and skin. By wearing different clothes or cutting your hair people can change the way they look on the outside, but they cannot change how they are built. Your parts that you cannot change are in your genes and your genes are all in your cells. Your genes tell your cells what to do. For instance, how to grow or decide what your personality will be like. You get your codes from your genes which make you look the same as other people or very different from them. Your genes might give you black hair and brown eyes. All living things have characteristics that come from their genes. A palm tree might be tall, brown, skinny, and have green leaves at the top. Each of them is a characteristic of a palm tree. Another name for characteristics in science is trait. Any part of a living thing that was determined by their genes or environment is called a trait. There are three reasons why the person and the palm tree are the way they are:

• Their genes shape them this way.
• Their environment shapes them this way.
• Their genes and environment shape them this way.

You might have some similar traits with your family members. They were probably passed from your parents’ genes to yours or they come from the environment where you all live. Every kid gets half of each of their parents’ genes. That’s why you look like both of your parents. On the other hand, genes are not the only thing that make you and your parents look the same. The environment, in which you live, either together or not, also changes how you look. It is another important factor that makes people who share the same traits look different.