Middle school Students from the Urban League of Springfield came to UMass on Thursday, April 24 and Friday, April 25 to tour the campus of UMass Amherst and participate in STEM-related activities. GWIS outreach members Arianne Bazilio, Amy Ryan, and Katherine Lownsbery had a blast working with the students using simple chemistry to extract DNA from strawberries and wheat germ! OH YES, YOU CAN SEE DNA, RIGHT BEFORE YOUR VERY EYES! All you need are some simple ingredients that you can find in your kitchen! The students even got to take their DNA home with them! The students also toured a chemistry teaching lab and saw some very sophisticated (and expensive!) instruments such as gas and high performance liquid chromatographs, and UV-Vis spectrophotometers. They thought high performance liquid chromatography was pretty cool as it could be used to detect and quantify the caffeine content in foods such as chocolate.
