Pay attention students: a very unique class was in session at Cowra High School on Friday morning as students had a chance to participate in a groundbreaking science program.
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Cowra High School is one of only eight schools in the country and the only one in regional Australia to be chosen to take part in the Amgen Biotech Experience.
In the next three weeks, students will use equipment on loan from the University of Sydney in a number of experiments.
Cowra High School science teacher Megan Mackenzie said she hoped the students would make the most out of the experience.
“Fingers crossed,” she said.
“It's an opportunity they wouldn't normally get and they seem to be quite engaged with it.
“It's quite expensive equipment they have loaned out to us but it's coming though from the Amgen Foundation.”
Class 10A were the first to try out the new equipment, practicing with pipettes and perfecting placing dye into Petri dish.
The first step in the experiment was a practice run before moving onto the electrical equipment.
The pipettes were used to put red dye into wells that were smaller than a millimetre in a Petri dish.
Students then had a go at the main experiment. Dye was placed into tubes into a centrifuge to make it pool at the bottom.
The students then pip the dye into a Electrophoresis machine, which separated the colours in the dye.
Ms Mackenzie said the students will then move onto using real DNA and bacteria.
“So the next step is to take the part of the DNA with the red Sea Urchin florescent gene in it and put that into bacteria,” she said.
Today we are learning how gel electrophoresis works, so separating a mixture of dyes with electricity through gel.
- Megan Mackenzie
“Then we will grow the bacteria and hopefully when we have it in the right conditions, the bacteria will be red.”
It won’t be only one class getting to use the equipment, Ms Mackenzie said a number of classes will get the opportunity to take part in the experiments.
“I taught my Year 12's how to use the pipettes and then this afternoon when I have chemistry, the Year 8's are going to come along and the Year 12's are going to help me with the class full of Year 8's,” she said.
“Just so we can try and expose it to as many students as we can.”
Cowra High School received the chance to take part in the program thanks to former science teacher Brian Edmunds and Ms Mackenzie, who traveled to Sydney to train in the program.
“The program has been extended so we should be able to get it back next year,” Ms Mackenzie said.