Spectacular Science

By Jeremy Holman
Upper School Science Teacher, Lakehill Preparatory School

We’re off to a great start in the science program this year. Sweet peas are growing like crazy in the gardens we built last year, and we have the ability to grow large cultures of algae for biodiesel production in the AP Environmental Science class.  The catfish we stocked in the ESC pond last year seem to be doing well—a handful of fish pellets will bring dozens of two- to four-pound fish splashing to the surface.

In AP Biology, students performed experiments to determine evolutionary relationships between different fishes based on a small profile of their proteins, which they extracted and separated on gels themselves.  They will soon be investigating how well different mushroom species are able to decompose plant matter by quantifying the activity of an enzyme that is essential for breaking down cellulose.  But even cooler still, they will be growing bacteria and inserting a gene from a jellyfish that glows bright green under ultraviolet light.  They can actually control the expression of the gene and extract and purify it with a process called protein chromatography. This would not have been possible without the gift of special equipment and training over the summer from Dr. Michael Rosen and Dr. Yuh-Min Chook from UT Southwestern’s Biophysics department.

Stay tuned for more details of the exciting things happening in Lakehill’s Science department.