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Isolation and visualization of nucleic acid with homemade apparatus: Practical activities for secondary schools

In many developing countries one of the major problems in the teaching science is the lack of adequate equipment and reagents. One way to solve the problem of the absence of laboratory equipment is to develop practical classes in which students construct some of the equipment needed for the students to understand abstract topics in molecular biology. In this article we describe how students can be motivated to construct a microcentrifuge and electrophoresis apparatus with simple materials. We also give details of two practical activities (nucleic acid extraction and the separation of DNA and RNA by agarose gel electrophoresis) that use common non‐hazardous household substances and only a few laboratory reagents. Some questions for the students to answer after the practical activities are also presented.