DNA Scientists in Action

Is a burger, promoted as such, indeed organic? How pure is chicken or seafood? What might be lurking in pond or pool water? How much DNA can be found on dollar bills?

These are some of the questions our fifth grade boys are exploring in the culminating activity of their DNA unit of study with the DNA Learning Center at Cold Spring Harbor. On Monday, educators from DNALC were at Saint David’s and, with our teachers, they guided the boys in an exciting final project: The boys, working in teams, are extracting and performing DNA analysis on samples of their own choosing in order to answer a question of their own design.

The multi-step step process involves extracting and amplifying the DNA, and performing electrophoresis. The samples will then be sent to a facility for decoding, and the results returned to our boys. The boys will make presentations on their experiments and results later this month.

The energy in the labs today was off the charts; all of the boys excitedly offered their thoughts and hypotheses about outcomes. Equal to the energy was the degree of focus and engagement: This type of work is exacting and intricate, requiring patience and high levels of concentration. And the boys clearly love it.

“We get to do such active, interesting things in this unit.” “My parents are saying we will know more at our age than they know about DNA; I feel like I’ve already learned so much.” “It’s great to be able to choose something you are really interested in and learn about it.”

These were some of the assessments boys offered of this unit. They have learned so much this year about how real-world science works, not through books or lectures, but by eagerly putting on the scientist’s “white coat and gloves” and doing the thinking and experimenting themselves.

Photo 1: Sample of crabmeat to undergo DNA extraction and analysis.

Photos 2 and 3: Adding silica resin to extract DNA from a sample.

Comments

OLIVER!

This morning our fifth graders continued a great year-end tradition at Saint David's, The Fifth Grade Musical. The boys performed Oliver! and they were fantastic, providing impressive performances and demonstrating great vocal ability. They have been mastering the dialogue and musical numbers for weeks, and clearly gave it their all. Congratulations to the cast on a job well done, and to their Producers/Teachers James Hubbard and Jamie MacNeille, Director Phyllis Clark, Musical Conductor Jeff Moore, and the Parent Committee of Cynthia Chapman, Susan Kissane, Tara Neumann, Joyce Restituto, and Ann Roberts. Musical theater is alive and well at Saint David's!

Sixth Graders Meet with Dr. Carter Emmart, Director of Astrovisualization at the American Museum of Natural History

Dr. Carter Emmart with Saint David's Sixth Graders This past Friday, as part of our unique partnership with the American Museum of Natural History, sixth graders had the great honor to attend a private lecture given by Carter Emmart, Director of Astrovisualization at AMNH. Dr. Emmart told the boys about his passion for science along with an overview of the history of the Hayden Planetarium. He also gave the boys advice on how to take scientific information about the universe and compile it into an interesting and captivating show for an audience. The boys were able to see Dr. Emmart's original sketches, which helped create the Uniview program they are using to develop their presentations. The session provided our boys with an opportunity to learn how art and science come together in the planetarium, and to obtain expert advice on developing their own space shows from one of the creators of Uniview . You can learn more about Dr. Emmart's work and Univie...

Surf's Up for Horizons at Saint David's

Little can top catching a wave to beat the heat on an exceptionally hot summer's day. Yesterday, as the temperatures soared into the nineties, the Horizons at Saint David's Eighth Grade class traveled to Rockaway Beach with their teachers for surf lessons with New York's premiere surf school, Locals Surf School. The boys have been taking swimming lessons through our program since their first summer with us in 2012. At that time, they were were rising first graders, and our inaugural cohort of Horizons students. Yesterday, they were ready to go, and, as these pictures show, they had a blast while learning a new skill. This is the eighth year of Horizons at Saint David's, a six-week multi-faceted academic and cultural summer experience whose mission is to prevent summer slide in elementary school boys from low-income families. We began the program in conjunction with Saint David's 60th anniversary in 2011, as one way that Saint David's as an ins...

Headmaster's Blog

Search This Blog