Curriculum
Students get to participate in many difference experiments inside the Science Express.
Activities
Students will be able to:
- Purify DNA from kiwi, strawberry or banana
- Measure their hair thickness by laser diffraction
- Solve a crime using DNA profiling
- Test their hand strength or record their EKG
- Use oil-eating bacteria to clean up an “oil spill”
- And many others
Activity Summaries Samples Below
(For a Complete List of Activities)
Pipetting 101: This activity introduces students to adjustable pipettors (Pipetmen) through fun activities including precipitation reactions, color-change reactions, and the relation between weight and volume (1 ml 1 gram).
Looking into Lactase: Students are part of the development team preparing to bring a "Lact-aid" like product to market. In the 45-minute version they are introduced to lactose intolerance and test the effect of lactase on milk and milk substitutes. In the 90-minute version, additional concepts such as temperature and pH stability of the enzyme are explored.
Kool-Aid Katastrophe (Chromatograpy): Students are members of an analytical team charged with figuring out which two Kool-Aid flavors accidentally got mixed. Paper chromatography is used to separate the dyes in standards and the unknown.
Kool-Aid Katastrophe (Spectroscopy): This activity can stand alone or be used as a follow-on to the chromatography lab. Students are members of an analytical team charged with figuring out which two Kool-Aid flavors accidentally got mixed. Absorbance spectroscopy is used to analyze standards and the unknown.
Intro Physiology: Students are introduced to a dynamometer (a device used to test hand or finger strength), spirometer ( a device used to test lung capacity) and a three-lead EKG (device to measure electrical impulses that control heartbeat) and work as teams to formulate and test hypotheses.
DNA in fruit!: Students extract DNA from banana, strawberry or kiwi. Always a popular activity.
The Speedy Burger Mystery: Students use an antibody to determine if Speedy's burger is 100% beef or whether soy additives caused a customer's allergic reaction.
Cold-Stone Caper: Students use DNA techniques (restriction digests, electrophoresis) to prove which of three suspects left their DNA at the scene of the crime.
