Scientists from Cawthron Institute came to visit our Year 9 Science classes on Tuesday this week.
They ran two hands-on workshops, where our students got a chance to use their identification skills to find invasive marine pest species from our local marina, and they also got to explore how future biotechnology tools can be used to identify the presence of marine pests, based on the environmental DNA (eDNA) that all living organisms leave behind as they move through their habitat.
This outreach programme has been designed to support the teaching that has been happening in all of our Science classes this term as part of our Manukau unit. In this unit, students have been learning about marine ecology, adaptations and features of pest species, classification of organisms, and about the structure and discovery of DNA and the use of eDNA for pest detection.
By Gerd Banke
