Kate's Corner: Strawberry DNA

All living things have DNA inside their cells. In this Kate's Corner, we are going to extract DNA out of a strawberry.

Here's what you'll need:

- A strawberry

- Water

- Dish soap

- Salt

- Iced rubbing alcohol

- A plastic bag

- Stainer

- Tweezer

Mix together 6 tablespoons of water, 2 teaspoons of dish soap, 3/4 teaspoons of salt. Then put that mixture and a strawberry in your bag. Remove as much air out of the bag as possible and zip it up. Mash your strawberry up until there are no big pieces.

Once you're done, use a strainer and empty the liquid into a cup. Take your iced rubbing alcohol and pour one teaspoon of it onto the top of the liquid. Watch and see what happens.

You'll see a white film form on the top. Take a tweezer and pull out that film. THAT is strawberry DNA!

Now, as we said, DNA is in every living organism and determines all its genetic traits.

We were able to extract the strawberry's DNA because the soap dissolved the cell membranes. The salt broke up the protein chains that hold nucleic acids together which helped to release the DNA strands.

Soap helps to dissolve cell membranes. The rubbing alcohol was added because DNA is non soluble in it.