[DIYbio] Re: Ideas for teaching a DIY 1hour workshop with K-12

On Tue, Mar 10, 2009 at 1:39 PM, EJ <ellenjorgensen@aol.com> wrote:
>
> If you use strawberries and cold rubbing alcohol you will get a LOT of
> DNA from a single strawberry. Like a big glob of snot. It's so easy
> that we did it in my office with a strawberry from somebody's fruit
> salad, using the standard procedure that's floating around the web. A
> coffee filter works great to filter the mashed glop from the
> strawberry, and all you need is salt, dishwashing liquid, and rubbing
> alcohol. People are invariably fascinated by this, especially if they
> are CSI fans, LOL.

A 3-year-later 'thank you' Ellen!

I just did this yesterday with 2nd and 3rd graders, only one student
was too ADD/hyper to get any DNA (he wants to explode things, I was
confused why he didn't want to smash the strawberry)... everyone else
had great results.

I just used strawberries, sandwich baggies, kitchen detergent, kitchen
salt, coffee filters, 3oz transparent disposable cups, and pharmacy
91% isopropanol. No meat tenderizer.

I tried this at home first using a 3 or 4 blueberries, it worked fine
that way too (though these are more expensive berries)



So what about staining chromosomes/DNA for kids? I'm finding onion
root tip protocols, but they're too dangerous for me to oversee with
this many students. They're also pretty involved, not ideal for this
after school science class, since the kids are already tired from the
day, a lot of them tend to goof off if things get boring.

I suppose the best way to complete that would be a cheap-ish digital
microscope hooked up to the classroom's computer projector, are there
any with high enough magnification (don't answer this if there isn't a
friendly protocol for prepping the cells)


--
-Nathan

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