By studying the interactions between biological systems and its in environment, one can begin to understand why changes - be it on the molecular level or an entire population’s level - occur and the important role it takes in survival. This idea can be seen in Sharon Moalem’s book, Inheritance: How Our Genes Change Our Lives and Our Lives Change Our Genes, when he touches on the study of epigenetics. Epigenetics relates to the fourth big idea in how it expands on its underlying statement of essential knowledge 4.C.2, which states that “Environmental factors influence the expression of the genotype in an organism” (The College Board, 2015). Defined in the book as the study of how certain factors can alter gene expression in one generation and sometimes pass on these alterations, Moalem addresses epigenetics through his existing medical knowledge and various conducted studies (Moalem, 2014). For an example, Moalem first introduces the idea of imprinting, in which the parent a gene is inherited from carries more importance than the actual gene. In the Prader-Willi and Angelman syndromes, although they are totally different conditions, the parent a person inherits the genes from is the deciding factor in which condition someone is afflicted by. Another way Moalem demonstrates how one’s …show more content…
His book links to the third and fourth big ideas in the AP Biology curriculum framework, associating closely with learning objectives 3.15, 3.16, 3.17, 4.23, and 4.24 (The College Board, 2015). I thoroughly enjoyed the variety of ways the author chose to present his ideas, and my only complaint is that it was sometimes hard to follow Moalem’s haphazard way of storytelling, which was something akin to the unpredictable swing of