DNA Extraction

This is NOT my favorite topic to teach in Living Environment. Its importance cannot be overstated, and yet at the level of my students, 8th, 9th, some 10th graders, it's all still so abstract and hard to get your head around. It's our last major topic before the more straight-forward ecology unit (and revisiting evolution) to round out the year.

I still begin more or less with this "demystification" lab. The only purpose is really to see a big glump of DNA that came from the students themselves, and to understand the concept of a "protocol." I've re-written worksheets to follow my standard lab format and changed a few details around after consulting several other sources of information on the purpose of the various steps of the protocol. I don't do a lot with this lab. Some websites offer suggestions on how to manipulate/test some of the variables in the protocol, but I don't have the time or space for that. I'm not 100% sure of some of the measurements - I always gave rough descriptions in the past, and converted in my head to exact measurements - I'll have to double check them back at school next week and make adjustments if necessary.

After this, it's Pasta DNA models (structure & replication - under construction) followed by some kind of protein synthesis modelling, which I will work on and post as time permits.

Cheek Cell DNA Extraction Lab