Helping Out Middle School Scientists!

Funded Nov 29, 2021

I can't begin to describe how grateful my students and I are for your donations. As a low income school, my students had never had the opportunity to have a proper science lab "experience," this was the first time our school even had a Biology course. Since the beginning of the year my students had been begging me to do science experiments, and we finally got to do one, and many more to come, because of your donations to our classroom. It was joyous seeing their faces light up when they received their boxes, they quickly opened them up and immediately started asking me a billion questions. They were extra curious about the hot plate and the Erlenmeyer flasks, they had no idea what those were, and it was exciting transferring my knowledge and love for labs to my students.

The first experiment we did was on photosynthesis. The students tested the impact of light energy and carbon dioxide on photosynthesis. They place an aquatic plant called Elodea in four separate graduated cylinders, they used beakers to measure out the water for each Elodea plant, then they used straws to blow carbon dioxide into half of the graduated cylinders. The students placed the graduated cylinders in both dark and light environment and observed the effects for 48 hours. Lastly, we added Bromothymol Blue to each cylinder and they were SHOCKED to see how the water turned different colors, it was such a great lab day.

Currently, I am working on planning a strawberry DNA extraction lab for our DNA/RNA unit. They are fascinated with the fact that in such a tiny place (like the cell nucleus) so much important information can be stored. I want for the students to be able to see DNA in person not just through pictures. We will be using the stirrers and beakers that were donated to make this exciting experiment possible. I am excited to share pictures with you all of our experiment, and I hope you see through the pictures how much fun the students are having being scientists and learning. Thank you again!”

With gratitude,

Ms. Zakarian