By Sherry F. Pruitt

JONESBORO — Before a visit to the Arkansas Biosciences Institute at ARKANSAS STATE UNIVERSITY, Oak Grove Middle School student Chase Howard’s idea of extracting DNA from a strawberry was to “stick in a needle and pull it out.”

“From what I heard, it’s just that simple,” Howard said Thursday morning before touring the ABI facility and extracting strawberry DNA.

And though it was a somewhat easy experiment, the details were a bit more complicated.

Linda Kellim, science specialist with the Delta Math and Science Institute, divided Char Edwards’ gifted and talented class of 28 sixth-graders into two groups, with one touring first and the other starting the visit in the laboratory.

Kellim said the 11⁄2-hour-long session at the facility can handle 30 students from 9-11 a.m. and a second student group from noon-2 p.m. Tours are available a couple of days per month. The institute has a Web site where teachers may register for a student tour for sixth-graders through college students, she said.

“Please ask questions,” Kellim said. “This is a working facility. This is a lab. Please keep the noise level down and keep your hands to yourself. People are working.”

Kellim said the ABI Building was built with money from the tobacco settlement lawsuit.

“Arkansas built the research facilities, and they do research here dealing with cancer and a lot of other things,” she said.

Students watched as Debby Rogers, science specialist with the Delta Math and Science Institute, scanned her palm in order to be admitted into the facility’s restricted area.

“They let us in because they think it’s important for us to see these things,” Rogers said.

In the elevator ride to the lab, Edwards tagged one of two Environmental and Spatial Technology students to use the school camera and take pictures during the field trip.

In the lab, students donned latex gloves for the experiment.

“You can use fresh or frozen strawberries,” Kellim said. “We try to take them out of the freezer at the last minute so they are nice and moist, not dried out.”

She said the students would break through the plant cell wall to get inside the nucleus and separate the various parts.

Using coffee filters, plastic filters, coffee sticks, plastic bags and test tubes, students mixed and mashed strawberries in a shampoo-salt mixture to help break down the cell membrane.

The students added ethanol because it is not as dense as the liquid portion of their mixture. Finally, they measured liquid volume.

Edwards said the experience was valuable to the youngsters because it is a hands-on activity.

“The things they learn here today, they wouldn’t learn in any other way,” Edward said. “It’s hands-on learning; it’s called procedural (learning). Anything physical stays with them their whole life, like riding a bike.”

sherry@jonesborosun.com