Student Book

1. Look at the people in the photograph on page 68. List five visible features that vary
from person to person.
Any five visible differences, eg. Skin color, hair color, height, body mass, eye color.

2. Suppose you could carry out some tests on each person. Describe five features you
would expect to show variation.
Any five variables that can be tested, eg. Different ways of walking, voices, blood
groups, fingerprints, iris patterns.

3. Variation can be continuous or discontinuous. Explain what is different about

these two types of variation.
Features that show discontinuous variation, such as blood groups, can only take
certain values.
Those that show continuous variation, such as height, can take any value within a
certain range.

4. Choose three visible human features that show continuous variation.

Eg. Height, body mass, foot length, arm or leg length.

5. Explain what a frequency chart can tell you about a discontinuous variable like
blood group.
On a frequency chart, the height of each bar shows the number of people in each
category.

6. Explain why detectives often look for fingerprints at the scene of a crime.
Everyone’s fingerprint has a unique pattern of lines, so fingerprints can be used to
identify criminals.
 Workbook
Passports often get stolen so that other people can use them. Many people have
similar faces, so it can be hard to identify people from their photographs.
a. Explain why biometric data prevents the use of stolen passports.
Biometric data prevents the use of stolen passports because no two people have
the same data.

b. Suggest what biometric data would be best for use at airports.

Security systems used at airports need to be fast and reliable, so the best
biometric data to use could be iris patterns for security or face shapes for speed.