Classroom Spotlight: Delicious DNA

In April, Grade 8 students in Dr. Shayri Greenwood's science class explored the structure and function of the molecule that builds life by extracting deoxyribonucleic acid from strawberries. The neat thing about strawberry DNA is that you can see it with the naked eye!

The students performed the scientific experiment using household materials to extract the DNA. This was particularly important as some students performed the experiment synchronously at home through Friends’ hybrid learning model.

Usually, the DNA is combined within the cell, so you can’t see it. But when you create a mixture of dish soap and salt and mix it with the strawberry pulp, it helps break down the strawberry cells into individual parts.

Once alcohol is added to the pulp, it encourages the DNA strands to rise to the top and bind together, where you can see them together in one long, clear strand. Visualizing DNA in the plant model allowed students to take part in a unique hands-on experience with a structural unit that is ordinarily invisible, yet plays such an enormous role in the making of the world as we know it.

The experiment was also performed in April, the same month in which National DNA Day is celebrated annually on April 25 to commemorate two major discoveries in genetics: the day in 1953 when James Watson, Francis Crick, Maurice Wilkins, Rosalind Franklin and colleagues published papers in the journal Nature on the double helix, and the day in 2003 that marked the completion of the Human Genome Project.

The value of this lab was not lost on the students this past year, as the COVID-19 pandemic challenges everyone to consider how even the smallest things can have a major impact on our lives.