Summer SAVY 2018: Session 2, Day 2 – Investigations in Forensic Science (Rising 2nd)
Another great day here at SAVY! The students were eager to reevaluate the crime scene and review our findings from yesterday. The excitement is tangible throughout the room as students predict and share thoughts about possible outcomes!
Today, we built our knowledge of DNA. We combined what we knew about fingerprinting and proteins and dove deeper into “What is a DNA strand, and where is it found?”. We also discussed how DNA can be extracted and made visible by the naked eye using chemicals. As you can imagine, this experiment with extracting DNA from the white blood cells in our saliva was a huge hit! We discussed how all organisms have their very own unique set of DNA strands that make it unique, just like our own sets of fingerprints. We assessed the suspect samples and compared it to the DNA traces we found on the spilled cup left at the crime scene. Unfortunately, the saliva remnants of DNA were not strong enough and DNA lines were too faded to confidently pinpoint one suspect. However, we were able to narrow it down to at least two that definitely shared DNA patterns with the partial sample collected from the crime scene! The patterns in DNA evidence are helping to reveal the relationship between the suspects and the crime scene evidence! Tomorrow we focus on how chemistry can be used to analyze evidence and directly connect evidence to suspects.
Dinner table discussion…
Where is DNA found in a cell? Why is the nucleus called the “Brain” of the cell? How does DNA determine the type of living thing it forms?
-Ms. Mills
Extracting DNA
Learning How we use DNA to Solve our Mystery
