Winter 2011 - Newbattle Community High School

Page 4
Newbattle News
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‘…Fully Licensed Strawberry DNA Extractors’
Last June I got the chance to go to
Heriot-Watt University along with
nineteen other S1 pupils. When we
arrived the instructors were late!
When they arrived at 10.15am. I wasn’t
sure if I would enjoy this, but
when we got to the lab, I was mesmerised.
Sitting between Ethan Souness
and James Melvin, the instructors
started the introduction. We were
extracting DNA from strawberries.
I’d never done anything
like this before.
Firstly we had to prepare
a DNA extraction
solution. Ninety millilitres
of water to three
grams of salt, mixed in a
beaker until dissolved.
Then add ten millilitres
of cheap washing-up
liquid.
We then had to put a
strawberry in a plastic
bag, close it and then
mash the strawberry to a
pulp for about two minutes.
Then we added around thirty millilitres
of the DNA extraction solution
to the mashed up strawberries
(picture, bottom right) and put the
sealed bag in a bath of water
(temperature at sixty degrees Celsius)
for fifteen minutes.
We went and had a snack.
When we got back to the lab, we had
to put the bags of strawberry goo in
ice for five minutes; this helped break
down the cell membranes from the
nucleus.
We then poured the strawberry goo
into a coffee filter, getting rid of all
the lumps.
We poured around twenty millilitres
of the strawberry liquid into a test
tube. Then carefully we poured ten
millilitres of isopropanol (alcohol rubbing
solution), gradually, so that it
just sat on top of the strawberry liquid.
Then we were shown sort of web-like
white strings in the test tube, which
was DNA. We had to extract the
DNA and put it in a smaller test tube.
At the end we all got given a certificate.
Mine said ‘This is to certify that
Tommy Morton is a fully licensed
strawberry DNA extractor’. It was
12.30pm. Not a bad Saturday morning,
I thought.
Tommy A. Morton, 2BM
CDT News - 3D Printing comes to Newbattle
Last session, the CDT department
took delivery of Midlothian schools’
first ever 3-D printer. This was
funded partly by the Head Teacher,
Mr Wilson. With Curriculum for Excellence
now in full swing the CDT
staff had the opportunity to bring in
some cutting edge technology and did
so through the introduction of a
RAPMAN 3D printer which can create
products from computer aided
drawings. This will be used by all of
the S2 pupils at Newbattle as well as
some of the senior Product Design
students. Already the printer has attracted
the attention of a lot of pupils!
The S2 pupils will be using the 3D
printer to design and manufacture
their very own USB drive case and
once complete they will have a personalised
pen drive for using at home.
The photograph shows the RAP-
MAN printer and a completed USB
drive case.
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