Science News

Women in Science

Science has been celebrating International Women’s Day in many ways, including an excursion to a Women in STEM event. There will be more details on that next week, but here’s a sneak preview:

One of the celebrations included Science Club learning about Rosalind Franklin’s contribution to the discovery of DNA. Our wonderful Science Leaders prepared a PowerPoint presentation about Franklin’s work, and then the students extracted DNA from Bananas and examined it.

The experiment required superior squishing skills (to mash up the banana and open up the cells) along with careful pouring techniques to enable two layers of liquids to be formed.

The DNA could be seen as a white layer that formed between the two liquids. Some dye was added to help see the difference between the layers. Students then fished out the DNA and were able to observe it more closely.

Please note that next week’s Science Club will be postponed, since most students will be involved with the Cuts for Cancer fundraiser on Friday lunch.

Mia Sharma
Science Teacher