Fledgling Scientists Earn Wings With DNA Study
Bundled against the High Desert’s nighttime chill, the students huddled around the back of a pickup truck for a quick lesson on how to catch a sage grouse.
Armed with nets, floodlights, binoculars and boomboxes, their mission was to capture some of the game birds that inhabit the dry sagebrush plains. Before releasing the birds, the students would collect blood samples for DNA analysis at their lab at Yerington High School.
Spurred by curiosity and a persistent teacher, they are working with experts throughout the West, trying to determine whether a small population of sage grouse found along the Nevada-California border is genetically distinct from other sage grouse found in 11 Western states. Their findings could influence the decision on whether the grouse should be protected under the Endangered Species Act.
In the process, they are getting a head start on college, finding new enthusiasm for science and taking pride in their role in the ongoing debate over a very real environmental issue.
“Truthfully, science never really interested me that much,” said Rachel Loucks. “But I can’t imagine a class that you’d enjoy more.
“It’s right there at the edge.”
With a population of about 3,000, this small ranching and farming community 90 miles southeast of Reno is hardly a hub for technological innovation.
But the high school class became an incubator for high-tech learning three years ago when a few students asked science teacher Steve Pellegrini to teach them about DNA.
“I knew nothing about it and decided I needed to learn it,” Pellegrini said. “We worked on the Internet, just bugging anyone we could think of to help us learn the DNA protocol.”
They set up a crude lab and began experimenting after school and on weekends with horsehair. At the urging of state wildlife officials, the students later took up sage grouse research.
Pellegrini also began hunting for money. So far he has received nearly $50,000 in grants to purchase the sophisticated instruments demanded in DNA research. With a well-equipped lab, the program was first offered as a regular class last fall.
“A high school is never going to be a definitive voice in something this large,” Pellegrini said. But experts have taken notice of the youngsters’ work and welcome their assistance.
“We’ll certainly be able to use some of their preliminary data,” said Tom Quinn, who heads a research laboratory at the University of Denver. “The other thing they’re doing is sending us samples from the birds that they’re working with, and that is definitely important to us.”
A study by the Denver researchers suggests this particular population of sage grouse is genetically distinct. Earlier this year, an environmental group used that study as a basis to petition the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for emergency protection of the birds.
Sage grouse--large game birds weighing up to 7 pounds--have seen their numbers decline by as much as 80% over the last 20 years.
The federal agency rejected the emergency action sought by the Institute for Wildlife Protection in Eugene, Ore., saying the groups in California’s Mono Basin and Lyon County in Nevada are part of a larger population more widely dispersed than the environmental organization claims.
That’s the question the Yerington class is trying to answer.
The students’ work is also important because they are targeting some of the more remote populations, said Sonja Taylor, a Quinn associate.
“They’re increasing the area from which we have genetic samples,” Taylor said. “We’re also interested to know what they’re doing because they’re testing different genes that we haven’t surveyed.”
The students are sensitive to the implications of their work, particularly in this ranching region. An emergency listing of sage grouse under the Endangered Species Act could restrict grazing and other uses of public lands.
A disclaimer on the class Web site reads: “We are in no way siding with either the farmers or the environmentalists; we are simply listing some of the possibilities for the disappearing numbers of sage grouse in this region of Nevada and California.
“We are involved in this for the science we are learning about and for the opportunities it presents us, not for any political motivation.”
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Back in the lab, the 16 young scientists explain the protocols and equipment used to extract DNA from grouse samples.
The “little white floaties” in the bottom of a small test tube are DNA, student Julie Sanford said.
The goal, said her lab partner, Desiree Hernandez, an aspiring geneticist, is to break the DNA down into “bands,” which when compared to other birds, “basically shows how closely they’re related.”
Terms like “PCRs” (polymerase chain reaction), “genecyclers”, “spectrophonometors,” “electrophoresis chambers, and “TBE buffer” roll off the tongues of these teenagers as effortlessly as slang.
And they know what they’re talking about.
Their achievements, said Principal Keith Savage, are the end result of a simple equation: “Take great kids, a great teacher, put them together and give them an opportunity to do what they do best.”
Their accomplishments are even more noteworthy given the community’s humble background, Savage said. More than half of all students in the elementary and intermediate schools qualify for subsidized lunches. More than a third of Yerington High’s 468 students are minorities--21% are Latino and 16% are American Indian.
The University of Nevada at Reno is providing technical expertise and advice to the students, who can earn independent study credits, said Lee Weber, chairman of the university’s biology department.
The university has made DNA analysis software available to the class, Weber said, and hopes to set up video conferencing with the Nevada Genomics Center, the core DNA analysis facility for university researchers.
The Yerington class is being used as a model to try to establish similar programs at other Nevada high schools, he said.
Although some students hope to pursue a career in science, others have different goals. Joe Halsted wants to become a pastor. Charity Triplett dreams of being a veterinarian. Loucks hopes to become a lawyer, but she’s considering an degree in microbiology first.
“The way I figure, if I study science, then I can use my background to better represent or protect my client,” she said. “I’ll know what I’m talking about.”
