Nature Explorers, an after-school club for students in the Northeast Elementary School's Kids Count program, begins the spring semester's sessions Feb. 18 at 3:50 p.m. Kindergarten through fifth-grade students can join the club, where they learn firsthand about science by planting seeds, racing beetles and even isolating DNA. 

The Nature Explorers club, run by an outreach committee at the Boyce Thompson Institute (BTI) for Plant Research, located on the campus of Cornell University, is one of many activities in the Northeast Kids Count program. An after-school program founded in September 2004 by parents, Kids Count also includes clubs for drama, birding, dodgeball, quilting and other activities. Kids can attend on school holidays as well as after school.

On Feb. 18, Nature Explorers club members will extract DNA from bananas using common household materials. They will then meet once a week through the end of May for other hands-on learning activities.

For more information, please contact Nicole Markelz at (607) 254-6732 or nph5@cornell.edu.