Published: July 02, 2008 04:40 pm         

Students on the case of dying dolphins

Most high school science students will conduct experiments like dissecting a frog, but students in Zionsville Community High School’s genetics and advanced placement biology classes kicked it up a notch this year.

They helped the Indianapolis Zoo figure out why some of its baby dolphins have died.

“This is nowhere near normal high school work,” ZCHS AP Biology teacher Barbara Burkhardt said. “These kids are participating in a true genetic research project.”

To do that, students determined the genetic diversity in the pod of seven dolphins at the zoo in a joint project with University of Indianapolis professor Mary Ripke. The zoo suspected a possible cause of the death was inbreeding among the dolphins. Burkhardt hasn’t read all the students’ papers yet, but the preliminary evidence points to some inbreeding, she said.

Each of the approximately 80 students who participated were given a vial of blood from one of the dolphins. They learned how to extract mitochrondial DNA from the white blood cells in it and isolate the D-loop, which varies greatly between individuals, Burkhardt said. They chose mitochrondial DNA because it is inherited only from the mother and the students can determine the matrilineal line.

The program was funded through a grant from the University of Indianapolis and the Zionsville Education Foundation. ZEF will also provide funds for next year, allowing ZCHS students to perform new studies on the dolphins’ genetics.

Next year, the class will focus on nuclear DNA rather than mitochrondial, Burkhardt said. One of the dolphins is pregnant, but the zoo wants the class to help it find the identity of the father. The classes will also try to have results published by the National Center for Biotechnology.

ZCHS genetics teacher Dan Layton said this experiment was much different than other high school science experiments. In other experiments, the students and teachers know what the outcome is supposed to be and work toward that, he said.

“What was great for them was to go through something and not know what was going to happen ... They used all their skills and learned how science works,” he said.

Burkhardt said this collaboration began through a chance meeting at the zoo. She taught a bio-informatics class for teachers during the last two summers. The class took a field trip to the zoo, and during that trip, the teachers started talking with zoo officials about the possibility of sequencing the dolphins’ DNA.

She gave seniors Jennifer Yu and Julia Marrs a chance to take on the project. The two students, who were in Burkhardt’s AP Biology class last year, spent time after school learning the techniques needed to conduct the experiment alongside Burkhardt and Layton.

“We felt it was just a really interesting project. Not many high school students get this kind of hands-on research experience. This is stuff college students and graduate students do,” Yu said.

The two students had already learned many techniques in AP Biology, but they had more to learn about the bio-informatics side of it, Yu said. They ended up developing a comprehensive procedure for students who would be working on the project in class. And over the last few weeks they’ve been helping students in the AP Biology and genetics classes finish their projects.

In many classes students never learn about the practical uses for what they are learning, Yu said, but this experiment gives students that chance.

“This definitely shows when you would use it in real life,” she said.

     

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