Our Forensic Science class is home to over one hundred and sixty, insatiably curious junior and senior high school students in Houston, Texas.
The students are eager to learn how to process crime scenes as well as investigate every aspect of Forensic Science.
It is wonderful to be able to bring to life the material they are learning in the classroom with hands-on laboratories and activities. Our school and administration are extremely supportive of the addition of our science class. We look forward to collaborating with our cross curricular counterparts as the students take the skills they learn in our classroom, and apply them to areas of Science, Law and Debate.
My Project
The funding of this project will expose the students to real world applications in the field of science. The great thing about exposing the students to and teaching them about DNA fingerprinting, is that it applies to numerous fields of study.
We will begin our adventure by activating the students' prior knowledge in the field of Biology and Chemistry by extracting DNA from various fruits.
The students will then use their math skills to quantify our product and determine how much DNA we obtained. Next, they will make a series of dilutions to obtain the appropriate amount of DNA to use in the PCR reactions. In the end, we will visualize our products by running the PCR producst out on an agarose gel. The students will then use their deductive skills to determine which of the suspects from our PCR kit matches the DNA found at the crime scene.
This type of kit allows us to take the deductive reasoning skills we have worked on all year and apply them to the world of science.
DonorsChoose is the most trusted classroom funding site for teachers.
As a teacher-founded nonprofit, we're trusted by thousands of teachers and supporters across the country. This classroom request for funding was created by Mrs. Nixon and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.