Sciiiience. I cannot lie. I’ve admitted it before. It’s SOOOOOO not my thing. And luckily it’s Mrs. Co Teacher’s thang. Because at Parent Teacher conferences, that’s all. I. heard.
“My kiddo looooves what you’re doing in Science right now”
“What you’re doing in science sounds so cool”
“I wish we had done stuff like that when I was their age!”
And who can blame them. Our kiddos… wait for it… extracted DNA from a strawberry this past week! What? That’s what I said when I first heard about it. But they did. And it worked amazingly. I was shocked. I mean, I trusted that it would work, but admittedly not nearly as well as it did.
You can grab the lesson plan here.
You start off by mashing up a strawberry in a bag!
Then add in some mixture (see lesson plan!) and filter the mixture through a coffee filter.
After you have some liquid in the cup, slooooowly pour in some chilled rubbing alcohol. And VIOLA!
Strawberry DNA shows up!! It seems simple… and. it. is. Wowzers. This activity was insanely cool. No joke, our 5th graders started wearing their DNA as necklaces. I could have died, it was so funny! They loved it. And while it took quite a bit of prep, it was such an awesome lesson for these guys! I would definitely recommend it for those of you teaching about fabulous DNA. We also did a fun little activity, creating an edible model of DNA. *Click the link for this lesson plan as well!*
Check these activities out to spice up your science classroom! Enjoy!!
