The Biology of Skin Color Short Film

Student Handout

Amarsya R. Jurnalis
NAME____________________________ 11/13/2020
DATE______________________

This handout supplements the short film The Biology of Skin Color.

1. True / False. Biologists classify specific forms of traits as good or bad. For example, long tails in cats could be
False
classified as good and short tails as bad. ________

2. Explain the reasoning or evidence you used to answer Question 1.

Some organisms have an advantage with some traits, but they could be a disadvantage in
other situations.

B
3. If you travel north from the equator, what generally happens to the intensity of ultraviolet (UV) light? _____
a. The intensity increases.
b. The intensity decreases.
c. The intensity stays the same.
d. It is impossible to predict.

A
4. Who would you expect to be most at risk for developing the bone disease rickets? _____
a. Children born to mothers with dark skin, living far from the equator
b. Adults with dark skin who live close to the equator
c. Children born to mothers with light skin, living close to the equator
d. Adults with light skin who live close to the equator
e. Anyone who eats a diet that includes a lot of fish

5. Explain the reasoning or evidence you used to answer Question 4.

People with dark skin who are used to the sun, traveling away from the equator will reduce
calcium intake which can cause bone disease.

6. When Dr. Nina Jablonski describes her discovery of the UV data collected by NASA, a headline is visible that
reads, “Ozone Depletion Raising Risk of Skin Cancer, Scientist Says.” Use this headline and your
understanding of what causes skin cancer to infer a beneficial feature of the ozone layer for humans. Why
would a depleted ozone layer increase the risk of skin cancer?
Ozone in the atmosphere helps shield people from harmful UV rays. With it disappearing,
more people are at risk of getting skin cancer.

7. Ultraviolet light can cause mutations and other damage within cells, which can hurt an individual’s chance of
surviving and leaving offspring. Some molecules can protect cells from damage by UV. The amount of these
molecules is determined by genes. Within a population, some individuals make more of these UV-protection
molecules than others.
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The Biology of Skin Color Student Handout
What do you predict would happen to the frequency of the genes that cause more of the molecules to be made
B
in a population over time? Assume all other factors are equal. ______
a. The frequency would increase because individuals need the genes.
b. The frequency would increase because individuals with the genes for more molecules would leave more
offspring.
c. The frequency would decrease because molecules are types of chemicals, and having more chemicals in
the body is harmful.
d. The frequency would stay the same because populations do not change over time.

8. Write down the evidence or reasoning you used to answer Question 7.

They would decrease if a person lived closer to the poles and increase if they were closer to
the equator

9. Describe your ideas about why indigenous groups of people in different parts of the world have different
skin colors from other groups of people.
Indigenous groups from different parts of the worlds have different skin colors due to differing
UV they get, and the location they live in.

10. Describe at least three different types of evidence that support your ideas for Question 9.
Some areas of the world have more sunlight increasing the amount of UV they receive, dark
skinned people who have lived in the sunlight for a long time, living in areas without as much
sunlight have a risk of bone disease and need to take supplements containing necessary
carbon requirements, and the more they are in areas with more sun, their skin gets darker.

Use the following scenario to answer Questions 11 and 12.

18
A biologist was studying two indigenous groups of
Number of Different Alleles of

16
people from different areas of the world. The first
population was from equatorial Africa. The second 14

population was from northern Europe. The biologist 12

the Gene

was studying a gene that affects skin color. The 10

biologist examined the gene in 100 people from each 8
population. She kept track of how many different
6
forms (or alleles) of the gene she found in each
4
population. The results are in the graph in Figure 1.
2
0
Population 1 (equitorial Population 2 (Northern
Figure 1. Africa) Europe)

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The Biology of Skin Color Student Handout
11. Describe the major pattern in the data in Figure 1.
The number of different alleles is higher in the group from Northern Europe compared to the
group from equitorial Africa.

12. Make a claim about the strength of stabilizing natural selection on this gene in the two populations. Use
evidence from the graph (Figure 1) to support your claim.
People that live near the equator have a small amount of variation in skin color which helps
them survive and people who live farther away from the equator have more variation which
helps them live in the variations in climate and altitude.

13. Describe how having dark skin may have provided an advantage in survival and reproduction to people
thousands of years ago in some places in the world but not in others.
Having dark skin would give the advantage of having a smaller chance of vitamin D deficiency
and would lower the chance of being unable to reproduce, because they would be outside for
longer periods of time in be exposed to a lot of UV light.

14. Biologists sometimes say that “natural selection depends on the specific environment where a species lives.”
B
What does this statement mean? _______
a. If populations of a species are in different environments, traits that individuals need to meet their needs
in each environment will appear.
b. Traits can be helpful or harmful. If populations of a species are in different environments, some traits
that are helpful in one environment might be harmful in another environment.
c. Traits are always either helpful or harmful, and the environment of a population doesn’t matter. If

populations of a species are in different environments, the same traits will always be helpful.

d. Species were formed to perfectly match their environment. The traits of individuals in a species depend
on the specific environment in which they were created.

15. Describe how UV light is harmful to people but can also be necessary.
UV light is needed for Vitamin D production but it can cause mutations in skin cells and cause
skin cancer.

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The Biology of Skin Color Student Handout
16. How does the synthesis of melanin by melanocytes help these cells with their major function in skin?
It helps them protect the nucleus by creating a shield around it.

17. The graph in Figure 2 summarizes the age at which people are diagnosed with melanoma, the most serious
form of skin cancer. Use the graph to explain why protection from skin cancer may not explain the strong
selective pressure for dark skin in high-UV areas.

Figure 2.

The graph demonstrates that most people contract melanoma after their childbearing years.
Therefore, most people who contract melanomas would have already had children and
passed their genes on to them, reducing the strong selective pressure for darker skin. The
role of skin cancer as a factor that may have influenced the evolution of skin color is still an
area of active scientific discussion and study.

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