Name:

DNA EXTRACTION
MATERIALS
Fruit (strawberry or blueberries) Rubbing alcohol
Warm water Coffee filter
Salt Cup or glass jar
Concentrated dish soap Plastic bag for squishing fruit (optional)

METHOD - Also called the protocol

or the instructions!
1. Place your rubbing alcohol in the fridge
or freezer.
2. Squish the fruit thoroughly.
3. Make your extraction solution by
mixing together:
1/2 cup warm water
1 tsp salt
2 tsp concentrated dish soap
4. Add 2 to 3 teaspoons of extraction
solution to your squished fruit and stir
gently for one minute.
5. Pour the fruit mixture into a coffee
filter and let sit for 5 minutes. VERY
GENTLY close the bag and press to
extract more liquid. Be careful not to
press too hard. If the bag breaks you
will need to strain the liquid again.
6. Take the rubbing alcohol out from the
freezer and carefully pour a layer of
Rubbing
rubbing alcohol on top of the layer of alcohol
fruit liquid. The goal is for the amount
of rubbing alcohol to be roughly equal
to the amount of fruit liquid. But it does
not need to be exact.
7. Observe the container and watch for a Fruit
white foamy substance to form on the liquid
surface of the rubbing alcohol. This is
your DNA!

 OBSERVATIONS
Make notes about what you saw and did! What type of fruit(s) did
you use? Did you see DNA float up into the rubbing alcohol layer?

what did you learn from doing this experiment?

Any ideas for what you would try if you did this
CONCLUSIO
experiment again? Did it turn out how you
expected or did something surprise you? NS

DNAThe stuff inside all living things! Name:

DNA is a polymer, a LONG strand of

repeating units. Just like beads strung
together make a necklace, nucleotides
strung together make a strand of DNA.

Activity One: Color the nucleotides!

Red Blue Yellow Green

There are 4 different building blocks (nucleotides)

for DNA: Adenine, Cytosine, Guanine, and
Thymine—often referred to by their beginning
letters: A, C, G, and T. In the part you just
colored, did you notice how the blue always
paired with green and the red always paired with
yellow? This is how things are in the cell too! A Activity Two: Circle the
always pairs with T, and G always pairs with C. things that have DNA:

Rock
Phone Egg Magnet Goldfish

Dog Silver Coins Cactus Snail Carrot Bacteria

 THINKING QUESTIONS Name:
1. If you extracted DNA from a strawberry and planted it,
could you grow a new strawberry? Why or Why not?

2. If you extracted DNA from a strawberry and ate it, could

you become a strawberry-growing human mutant?
DNA Deoxyribonucleic acid
Ribose is a 5 carbon sugar, Nucleobases or nitrogenous The Phosphate
often drawn as a pentagon. If bases are nitrogen-containing that makes up the
this sugar loses one oxygen, rings that either have two backbone of the
then it’s called a “deoxy rings (the Purines: Adenine DNA is acidic.
ribose.” The deoxyribose and and Guanine) or one ring
COLOR THE PHOSPHATE
phosphate make up the (The Pyrimidines: Thymine, GROUPS ORANGE.
backbone of DNA. and Cytosine) PHOSPHATE GROUPS HAVE
ONE PHOSPHOROUS ATOM
COLOR THE RIBOSE SUGARS COLOR THE PURINES PURPLE. TO AND 4 OXYGEN ATOMS, BUT
YELLOW. THE RIBOSE SUGAR IS A IDENTIFY THE PURINES, LOOK FOR FOR SIMPLICITY, THEY ARE
PENTAGON WITH AN OXYGEN AT THE PENTAGONS AND HEXAGONS DRAWN HERE AS LARGE
ONE OF ITS CORNERS (AN “O”) THAT ARE JOINED BY SHARING ONE DASHED CIRCLES AROUND
SIDE AND HAVE 4 NITROGENS. THE LETTER P.

N COLOR THE
N PYRIMIDINES
P BLUE. THEY ARE A
N N HEXAGON WITH

Adenine pairs
N TWO NITROGENS
N IN THEIR RING.
N
with Thymine
N
P
P N
N N
N
N Guanine pairs
N N
with Cytosine
N P
N
P
Thymine pairs
N N
N N
N with Adenine
N P
N
P
N
N N Cytosine pairs
with Guanine
N
N N

P
 Name:
THINKING QUESTION
1. Isoamyl acetate, sometimes
popularly called “banana oil” is
one of the compounds responsible ISOAMYL ALCOHOL ACETIC ACID ISOAMYL ACETATE
for banana avor. If an enzyme
called “bananase” makes Isoamyl Why does the
acetate from isoamyl alcohol, entire science lab Because I made
could you make a strawberry taste smell like banana isoamyl acetate!
laffy taffy?!?!
like a banana by putting the DNA
segment for the enzyme
“bananase” into a strawberry?
fl
Answer Key
DNA Deoxyribonucleic acid
Ribose is a 5 carbon sugar, Nucleobases or nitrogenous The Phosphate
often drawn as a pentagon. If bases are nitrogen-containing that makes up the
this sugar loses one oxygen, rings that either have two backbone of the
then it’s called a “deoxy rings (the Purines: Adenine DNA is acidic.
ribose.” The deoxyribose and and Guanine) or one ring
COLOR THE PHOSPHATE
phosphate make up the (The Pyrimidines: Thymine, GROUPS ORANGE.
backbone of DNA. and Cytosine) PHOSPHATE GROUPS HAVE
ONE PHOSPHOROUS ATOM
COLOR THE RIBOSE SUGARS COLOR THE PURINES PURPLE. TO AND 4 OXYGEN ATOMS, BUT
YELLOW. THE RIBOSE SUGAR IS A IDENTIFY THE PURINES, LOOK FOR FOR SIMPLICITY, THEY ARE
PENTAGON WITH AN OXYGEN AT THE PENTAGONS AND HEXAGONS DRAWN HERE AS LARGE
ONE OF ITS CORNERS (AN “O”) THAT ARE JOINED BY SHARING ONE DASHED CIRCLES AROUND
SIDE AND HAVE 4 NITROGENS. THE LETTER P.

N COLOR THE
N PYRIMIDINES
P BLUE. THEY ARE A
N N HEXAGON WITH

Adenine pairs
N TWO NITROGENS
N IN THEIR RING.
N
with Thymine
N
P
P N
N N
N
N Guanine pairs
N N
with Cytosine
N P
N
P
Thymine pairs
N N
N N
N with Adenine
N P
N
P
N
N N Cytosine pairs
with Guanine
N
N N

P
 THINKING QUESTIONS Name:
1. If you extracted DNA from a strawberry and planted it,
could you grow a new strawberry? Why or Why not?
Strawberry DNA could not grow into a new strawberry after
being planted in the ground. Just like a book with instructions
for building a bicycle will only result in a bike if the tools and a
person are available to read those instructions, the DNA of a
strawberry will only produce a strawberry if the “machinery”
of ribosomes and other parts of the plant are around.

2. If you extracted DNA from a strawberry and ate it, could

you become a strawberry-growing human mutant?

No.
DNA that goes into your stomach is broken apart by stomach
acid and enzymes. It does not become part of the DNA in the
cells of your body.

DNAThe stuff inside all living things! Name:

DNA is a polymer, a LONG strand of

repeating units. Just like beads strung
together make a necklace, nucleotides
strung together make a strand of DNA.

Activity One: Color the nucleotides!

Red Blue Yellow Green

There are 4 different building blocks (nucleotides)

for DNA: Adenine, Cytosine, Guanine, and
Thymine—often referred to by their beginning
letters: A, C, G, and T. In the part you just
colored, did you notice how the blue always
paired with green and the red always paired with
yellow? This is how things are in the cell too! A Activity Two: Circle the
always pairs with T, and G always pairs with C. things that have DNA:

Rock
Phone Egg Magnet Goldfish

Dog Silver Coins Cactus Snail Carrot Bacteria

 Name:
THINKING QUESTION
1. Isoamyl acetate, sometimes
popularly called “banana oil” is
one of the compounds responsible ISOAMYL ALCOHOL ACETIC ACID ISOAMYL ACETATE
for banana avor. If an enzyme
called “bananase” makes Isoamyl Why does the
acetate from isoamyl alcohol, entire science lab Because I made
could you make a strawberry taste smell like banana isoamyl acetate!
Laffy taffy?!?!
like a banana by putting the DNA
segment for the enzyme
“bananase” into a strawberry?

Maybe! There are several

interesting things that
happen when new DNA is inserted into another plant or
animal (learn more by researching “genetically modified
organism.”) Just because the DNA is there doesn’t mean it
will be EXPRESSED. It would be possible for a strawberry
to contain the gene to make “bananase” but for that enzyme
to never be made. It would also be possible for “bananase” to
be produced in a strawberry, but if there is no “isoamyl
alcohol” and “acetic acid” in the strawberry then there won’t
ever be any isoamyl acetate (banana oil) created. But if the
DNA segment for “bananase” was put into a strawberry and
a lot of isoamyl acetate was created, that strawberry would
indeed taste and smell like banana laffy taffy.
fl