Biology Week

We learned a lot at our camps this week in Biology Week! We talked about how biology is the study of living things and did a couple hands-on activities to explore the different aspects of it.

We did our first lab and extracted DNA from strawberries. The little scientists learned how all living things have DNA, which instructs our bodies to make us look different from each other and other living things.

Campers started by mashing up their strawberries with some buffer (salty soap water). They then sieved out the solid pieces so they only had the juice left. One of our instructors came around and poured rubbing alcohol into their solutions, and they got to see the solid DNA formed out of two different liquids. They had lots of fun playing with the long strings and spooling it into clumps.

Next we learned about the need for scientists to design medical prosthetics, and the need for engineers in medical fields. We tried this out for ourselves, designing mechanical hands out of cardboard and other household materials. Campers traced their own hands, then attached straws, string and rubber bands, to make hands with individual fingers that bend like our own and can even pick things up.