Lab News

Hi All,

Welcome back to JMSS for Term 2.  The lab team has been working on some great projects that will be running during Yr 10 Extended Experimental Investigation (EEI) and our Regional Exchange (REX) students this year. 

Mapping Platypus populations in Melbourne’s River system.

Platypus are very elusive and nocturnal creatures which makes it difficult to study their population size and where they live. Using methods that we have obtained through research papers and various other organisations such as Melbourne Water for studying platypus called Environmental DNA, or eDNA for short we are trying to build a map of where JMSS students have found evidence of platypus in waterways in Melbourne.  This information can also be provided to Melbourne water to assist with their Platypus Citizen Science: eDNA project.  The method involves collecting a sample of water and filtering it to see if we can find platypus DNA floating around. This then gives us a good indication if platypus have been in the area in the last 3 days.

Ms Trickett has done some big hikes out to Healesville Sanctuary and obtained a water sample from an enclosure where many platypus call home.  This was our positive control.  Similar samples have been processed and analysed at JMSS with SUCCESS in 2024 !!!!!! …. We have proved our methodology and have shown we have identified platypus DNA in our water samples.  Our latest batch is still waiting for analysis.

Next job is to identify possible sample sites for further testing….Speak to your Yr 10 Core Science teachers for more details on how you may become involved in this project.

Antibiotic properties of native plants – Indigenous Garden (Monash University) 

This project was first conceived last year at JMSS and consisted of investigating the effects of a range of Indigenous plants that may or may not have antimicrobial properties on one or more bacterial species.  We set out early one morning and collected a range of plants from the Monash University Indigenous Garden under the careful guidance of Georgia Lloyd (Assistant Lecturer, School of Biological Science, Monash University), Georgia works closely with Arnhem Land Elders and is a wealth of knowledge on this subject.  These samples were then processed by our REX students in 2024 and tested to try and answer some of the questions below.  We had some surprising results …… but further investigation is required in 2025 by our REX students and the Yr 10 EEI class.  

1. Which indigenous plants have been used by Australian aboriginals for medicinal purposes?
2. How do indigenous Australians extract or use medicinal compounds from these plants?
3. How effective are these native plant extracts as antibiotics?

Last but not least: Don’t forget your labcoat and glasses, please leave them in your lockers for the term.  

They only need a wash at the end of term or after a dissection. PPE loans from the Labtech office (back of 1L3) are available but you will need your compass card to record the loan.

The Lab Team

~ Anna Zonneveld, Erika Trickett, Ittai Waterson