Week at LaVille Jr.-Sr. High School
posted by: abeebe
GLOfish were a hit with the 9th grade students down at LaVille Jr.-Sr. High School in Lakeville, IN. Students were able to choose whatever strain of zebrafish parents they preferred. They had albinos, heterzygous and homozygous striped, and 3 colors of GLOfish-red, orange, and green to choose from. Of course, the beautiful GLOfish were the most sought after fish for the mating tanks. Unfortunately, their record of producing out in the classrooms has been almost a perfect zero!!! One lucky student did have a successful cross between a green GLOfish and a heterozygous striped zebrafish.
The results of the phenotypes of the offspring were somewhat inconclusive. The fish remained in the school for an extra 3 days so that the “glow” pigment might be evident at 7 days past fertilization. I traveled down to Lakeville on the following Monday afternoon, and observed the larvae both under the microscope and by naked eye. The students had left by the time I arrived, and Mrs. Lynne Barden relayed to me that both she and the student who had the “glow” offspring believed that they could see what appeared to be a green fluorescent color from the larvae. We shined an ultraviolet light on them to reproduce the fluorescence, but both Mrs. Barden and I were not completely sure that we saw it. Because the larvae are so small, it is difficult to distinguish whether we are seeing just a reflected light off of the zebrafish or an actual fluorescent light.
Our experiment needs some tweaking in order to determine if we are actually seeing a flourescence or not. I will be in Adams this coming week, so I will see whether the next set of students might come up with a modification to the experiment. I will post what develops next week!
Check out some pictures here of the students and Mrs. Barden.
