Section B1h: Understanding Ourselves - Who am I?

Genes can also change without human intervention. This is known as mutation. This item provides the opportunity to show that there are some questions that science cannot address and that technology may raise ethical issues when debating arguments for and against parents knowing a baby's genetic make-up before birth.

Suggested activities and experiences to select from:

Use poppit beads to show combinations due to chance; Toss coins to show expected and 'real' ratios; Use a genetics kit to show the results of a monohybrid cross.
Debate the arguments for and against parents knowing a baby's gender before birth.

Assessable learning outcomes:

Foundation Tier only:
Analyse human characteristics to determine those caused by the environment:

• scars, spoken language

Those controlled by genes and so inherited:

• earlobe shape;
• eye colour;
• nose shape

Those which are a result of both environmental and inherited factors:

• intelligence;
• body mass;
• height

State that some disorders are inherited: red-green colour blindness, sickle cell anaemia, cystic fibrosis

Both tiers:
Recall that inherited diseases are caused by faulty genes.

Higher Tier only:
Explain that inherited disorders are caused by faulty alleles, most of which are recessive. Use genetic diagrams to predict the probabilities of inherited disorders passing to the next generation. Discuss the issues raised by knowledge of inherited disorders in a family.

Section B5f: The Living Body - Life goes on

Humans, like all other animals have basic needs for survival and reproduction to carry on our species. When things do not work as they should we expect modern techniques to solve our problem. Sometimes solutions raise other issues.

Assessable learning outcomes:

Both tiers:
Describe foetal investigations such as amniocentesis to identify conditions such as Down's syndrome

Higher Tier only:
Discuss the ethical issues raised by foetal screening