Juniors in Dr. Mindy Furman’s advanced biology research elective at Yeshivat Frisch had the opportunity to visit Rutgers University earlier this month. The visit allowed the students, who are part of Rutgers’ Waksman Student Scholars Program, to connect with university researchers and other students—from high schools across New Jersey—who are part of the scholars program. As part of the program, students get to apply their previous study of science to cutting-edge, hands-on DNA research. This year, students are sequencing and analyzing a subset of a cDNA library of the genome of the plant Landoltia punctata, commonly known as duckweed, which has never been sequenced before. At the end of the process, the students’ research will be published on the National Center for Bioinformatics (NCBI) database.