Sickle Cell Anemia Investigation: Day 7

March 6, 2020 Dan_Smalley

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Today we practiced using a micropipet and loading fluid into the wells of gels. I used several resources from miniPCR to do this.

First of all, this is an amazing video resource to help teach your students how to micropipet. I paused it several times and had the students pass around micropipets to practice with.

Next, I had them compete against one another to pipet their solutions as accurate as possible onto micropipetting practice cards.

This activity requires the students to get the correct amount of fluid to fill the tiny circle on the card.

Water and food coloring and glycerin at 10% were used to make a solution that students could work with.

Student groups of two competed with students across the table to have more accurate pipetting skills.

Micropipetting Practice Cards, Set of 20

This silicone gel requires no work on my part so I feel I am wasting less time. The students can’t gum it up and jam into it the way they normally do when they are practicing loading gels.

Micropipetting 101

Next, I had students load their gels into the Electrophoresis machines and then submerge them in water. They filled the wells in their silicone practice gel to get the hang of loading a gel.

This was a very successful day and I am glad I spent the time preparing the students on how to do the practice. I also spent much of this day explaining what is actually occurring when a gel is running.

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Sickle Cell Anemia Investigation: Day 7

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