As part of our little study on genetics we attempted to extract DNA from wheat germ and split peas. I gathered together the required items and we first attempted to extract DNA from wheat germ using this site. Sadly, it didn’t work. We didn’t repeat the experiment to attempt to make it work so I’m not sure where we erred.
We went ahead and attempted extracting DNA from split peas using the directions on this site. The link no longer works, but this pdf file looks like it is the same thing. These directions were a bit more involved than the wheat germ instructions. We had to use many of the same items, but this one had us blending the split peas in a blender. This one worked! As we pulled out the DNA strands my son was wowed. We attempted to put the strands under a microscope to see them a little clearer. They were too clumped together the first time so we made another slide. That time we were able to differentiate the strands. We also realized the limitations of our little microscope.
This is awesome! We have try extracting DNA 🙂