Biotechnology Project Ideas

Discovering DNA: Do Your Cheek Cells & a Strawberry Both Have DNA?
DNA is what makes you look like you. It contains your body's instructions for your hair and eye color, ear shape, your height, and much, much more. Do other living things also have DNA or is DNA only found in humans? You can answer that question yourself (and have your first look at your own DNA) by doing this project. Read more

Glitter-Go-Round: Snow Globe Science with a Centrifuge
It is fun to shake up a snow globe and watch the "snow" slowly fall. You can imagine that if the snow fell down very quickly it would be disappointing. But there are times when scientists in a laboratory want this to happen. Scientists use samples that have liquid mixed with small, solid pieces (like the inside of a snow globe), and they need all of the solid pieces in a clump, separated from the liquid. Instead of waiting for the pieces to… Read more

Do-It-Yourself DNA
All living things have DNA inside their cells. How do scientists extract the DNA from cells in order to study it? In this experiment you can make your own DNA extraction kit from household chemicals and use it to extract DNA from strawberries. Read more

Mag-nificent Breakfast Cereal
How much iron is in your cereal? In this experiment, you will devise a way of testing foods for supplemental iron additives. Then you will use your design to test different breakfast cereals to see how much iron they contain. Which brand of cereal will have the most iron in it? Read more

A Magnetic Primer Designer
How do scientists "copy" DNA? They use a process called the Polymerase Chain Reaction, or PCR. The key to making this process work is having a short piece of DNA, called a primer, that will stick to the larger piece of DNA you want to copy, called a template. In this science project, you will test how the number of matches and mismatches in a primer will affect its ability to stick, or anneal, to the DNA template during PCR. Read more