Photo by Karin Elton Kevin Jennings uses a micropipette to transfer a small quantity of fluid to a gel as Aniso Mohamed observes. The two Marshall High School seniors are among the students in an AP biology class which is using high tech equipment which was purchased in part by a grant from the Pride in the Tiger Foundation.

MARSHALL — When Marshall High School science teacher Holly Knudson attended a summer workshop for instructors who teach advanced placement biology class, she worked with new technology that she instantly fell in love with.

“The first year I saw it I thought, ‘man, I wish I could afford to get this and then the second year I thought ‘I gotta get these.’ I thought of buying it myself, but then Mr. (Brian) Jones was like, ‘no, we’ll write a grant for it,'” Knudson said.

The results of that Pride in the Tiger Foundation grant, which matched general funds to buy the equipment, could be seen in her class Thursday morning in her AP biology class.

Her students’ assignment was to find out which food item at a party was responsible for causing sickness — a scenario “based on a real life case from the CDC (Centers for Disease Control),” Knudson said.

The students used a process called gel electrophoresis for DNA analysis. The new equipment cuts down the length of time needed to run the tests. Before getting the new equipment, Knudson had to do half the assignment herself because of the length of time it took to get results.

“I had to do part of the lab for them, which is not what you want to do,” she said.

Knudson said she still had to do a little preparation for the class. She took an hour to separate out 10 microliters of each sample.

The DNA samples are “just a mimic,” Knudson said, not the real thing, so the students aren’t exposed to anything, but she still has them wear gloves and goggles, as they would have to in a typical laboratory setting. Lexi Schnaser and Devine Bauman paired up for the foodborne illness lab. “We do labs like every day,” said Bauman.

“But this is probably the coolest one we’ve done,” said Schnaser.

DNA is a relatively new area of scientific research, they said.

“It’s one of the newer discoveries,” said Bauman.

“We’re still learning about it. I was watching a youtube video last night about ‘junk’ strands of DNA,'” she said. “We thought they don’t do anything, but now we’re learning they actually have a purpose, not a purpose that makes me, but another purpose.”

Schnaser recommends AP bio classes.

“It’s not as hard as everyone thinks it is,” she said, “if you do the work and read the book.”

There is a prerequisite class to take prior to AP biology.

“Biology is a required class,” Schnaser said. “And Devine and I took a CSI chemistry class which is not a prerequisite but it’s very helpful because it uses chemistry terms so it’s nice to have that prior knowledge.” Both Bauman and Schnaser said they like science, but are not sure if they are going to pursue it in the future.

“I’m not 100 percent sure. I think maybe. There are so many subjects that I like,” Bauman said. “I like all education so it’s hard for me to choose,” Schnaser said.