In Science 9 we had to do an experiment that extracted DNA from a strawberry and see what it looked like.   My partner was Adam. First we started off by placing the strawberry in a plastic bag, then added 5 ml of dish soap,  2.5 ml of salt and 25 ml of water to the plastic bag. We pounded the mix together and poured it into a test tube until it hit halfway. We added 10 ml of ice cold ethanol till it hit 3/4 full.

Then we watched the solution until we saw strands form and clump together and become bigger.  This white film had strands of DNA. We put those stands on a slide and looked at it under a microscope.  Under the microscope it looked a satellite photo of a white beach with spider webs on it.  The webs were the strands of DNA.

This process worked because the soap dissolved the cell membrane and the salt broke up the protein chains to help release the DNA.  The DNA didn’t dissolve in the cold alcohol so you could see it better.  I think it would be fun to do this experiment with other foods to see how DNA looks different in other organisms.

We also had to make a DNA model out of materials that a 6 year old would use to make arts and crafts. We had beads, pipe cleaners, macaroni and other arts and craft materials.  We used the pipe cleaners and straws to be the make the strands and used the beads and macaroni to be the cells in the DNA.

By building this model and doing the experiment, I have a better idea about cells and DNA that I didn’t know  made up food and other organisms in the world.  It helped put it in perspective since we don’t usually see the cells.