Shoreham-Wading River High School students in Research in Science and
Engineering Seminar are building upon skills learned last year in
Introduction to Science Research as they continue working on their
Barcode Long Island genetic analysis projects.
With assistance from research teacher Ms. Dana Schaefer, research
questions were developed independently by the two student teams.
Students then wrote proposals that were submitted to Cold Spring Harbor
Laboratory, the sponsor of the Barcode Long Island program. After the
proposals were approved, they collected specimens. Students Taylor
Peperno and Jalal Sawas collected wild mushrooms and Brianna Donnelly
and Torre Ann Parrinello collected mosses from various locations on the
high school campus. Once they extracted the DNA, amplified by polymerase
chain reaction and verified by gel electrophoresis, the students sent
off their samples for DNA sequencing. Their next step includes
analyzing their sequences using computer software and aligning to known
sequences. They will then present their projects at the Barcode
Symposium at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in early June.