Project 35: Biology

This week's project made use of another one of the science sets we bought in Maplin's closing down sale (see earlier Electricity Master Lab), the Thames & Kosmos Kids First Biology Lab:

The lab is primarily a microscope, instruction booklet, blank slides and the tools you need to prepare slides. If I had one criticism of the set, it would be the limited number of pre-prepared slides; there's just the one with a sample of wool, silk, and cotton threads. Preparing slides is quite tricky, so it would be nice if there were a few more to look at.

As Solomon was covered in chickenpox we started the week with some Ted-Ed videos on cells and viruses, and how the immune system works. We then watched a video on microscopy and did a number of the suggested experiments, including:

Looking at some cells from a human mouth:

Daughter's cheek cells

and comparing bacon fat and meat:

Bacon fat (left), bacon meat (right)

We finished the week by watching a video about DNA, and did an experiment from Usborne's 100 Science Experiments to extract the DNA from an onion using washing up liquid, salt, and surgical spirits.

Equipment for extracting onion DNA

Next week's project: Poetry