How does the environment affect traits?

1
Lesson 7 How does the environment affect traits?
2
What makes you the way you are?
Genes, of course! The environment also affects
the traits of living things.
3
The environment is made up of all the living and
nonliving things that surround an organism.
Air, water, temperature, and food are all parts
of the environment.
4
The right combination of these things is needed
for an organism to develop properly.
When the environment is not right for an
organism, certain traits may not develop at all.
5
Green plants, for example, need an environment of
proper sunlight, temperature, water and minerals
to grow well.
6
In a poor environment, they grow small, weak, and
pale.
7
The size of a plant is a trait. The gene for
this trait is not affected by the environment,
but the development of the trait is.
8
Suppose a person has a trait to grow really tall.
9
But he lives in a very poor country.
10
As a child, his diet was poor, and didnt get
much better. Diet is very important for proper
growth. Do you think he will grow as tall as his
gene dictates?
11
We cannot change our genes, we can change some
parts of the environment in which we live.
Eating, resting, and exercising properly help the
traits we are born with develop to their fullest.