How an organism grows depends on two kinds of factors. Environmental factors are the local conditions around it: the light, water, space and food available. Genetic factors are the instructions it inherited from its parents, which make a bean grow into a bean plant and set many of its traits. The week 8 seed jars show the environmental side: the same kind of seed grows differently in light and in dark, and with or without water. A trait can be shaped by genes, by the environment, or by both.