More than 300 students filled the gymnasium at RL Beattie Public School on May 15 in an attempt to break the world record for DNA extraction.
The students were tasked with extracting DNA from bananas through a process that can be completed using a minimal amount of household items. The process involved the students crushing the bananas in a ziploc bag before adding salt and water to the banana.
The mixture was then filtered into a cup, where students added liquid detergent, followed by isopropyl alcohol. When stirred, the banana DNA separated from the liquid for the students to see and touch.
Dr. Thomas Merritt, a professor of chemistry and biochemistry at Laurentian University headed up the event, and took the 341 students through the process step by step.
"Every year, NSERC (Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada) does an outreach like this for students," said Merritt. "Last year was about women in the sciences, but this year is a little bit more light-hearted with this experiment."
Merritt had discussions with teachers at RL Beattie and the original plan was to just have the grades three to six students take part, but after doing some poking around on the Internet, the professor realized that a world record could be achieved while simultaneously teaching students about the wonders of DNA.
"I saw that the record had recently been broken with 302 people doing a DNA extraction at the same time," said Merritt. "So it grew from there, and we decided to get all the grades, from one through six involved. We actually got a few of the senior kindergarten students involved as well because there were a number of kids who were sick today. In total, we had 341 students take part in the extraction."
This sets an unofficial world record for the school, and they now play the waiting game to find out if they go into the record books officially. Merritt had reached out to Guinness World Records a few months ago to give them the heads up that they would be attempting to break the record.
A total of 40 volunteers took part in the record attempt, as well as seven stewards, who are in charge of head counts and verifying that each extraction was completed successfully.
"Now we send all the paperwork off to Guinness and wait to hear back," said Merritt.
While the chances to get into the record books is exciting, Merritt was most enthusiastic about the opportunity to make science so hands on and accessible to the students.
"It's one thing to read about DNA in a text book, but this is much more hands on," said Merritt.
"The students are able to actually see the DNA and hold it in their hands, and that's the whole point of the exercise."
