Recreate A Face

Can you decode some skeleton DNA and recreate their face? This activity demonstrates how DNA variation can affect a person’s appearance. Using a DNA key you can work out what features a skeleton would have had based on a simplified DNA sequence profile.

DNA is a small molecule inside living things that acts as the instructions to make all humans the way they are. This information is encoded in four bases (adenine, cytosine, guanine and thymine). Differences in the sequence of these bases (A, T, C and G) provide different instructions, which can give people different features such as eye colour and hair colour.

DNA can be found in bones and teeth, and can be used to provide clues about the lives of people who live hundreds or thousands of years ago including what they could have looked like.

Age: 10+ (ks2+)