Freshman biology students will lay bare the secrets of Glacier High School’s native plant gardens — down to the DNA.

The gardens, planted in 2009 and 2012 to create bird habitat, are a new source of scientific study.

With aid from a $6,736 Flathead Conservation District grant, Glacier science teachers Sarah Conner and Stephanie Nadasi were able to purchase special equipment to extract DNA from leaf tissue.

“This will allow us to do what hasn’t been done before,” Conner said. “We wanted to put the native plant garden to use. It’s also a good project for the kids to use native plants to learn about Montana.”

Once students extract DNA, prepared samples will be sent to Flathead Valley Community College’s microbiology lab where DNA segments can be replicated, Conner said.

The samples will then be sent off to a company to be sequenced before returning to Glacier.

Glacier High School students will be able to use the new equipment to see banding patterns of plant DNA and learn unique features of Montana’s native plants.

The ultimate goal is to contribute the findings to a national database.

“We’ll compare the genes of a plant with a website that is called DNA Subway, which is trying to sequence all the plants in the world. We could potentially add to that database if a particular plant hasn’t been sequenced yet,” Conner said.

Students also will produce a field guide for the school’s native plants.

Conner estimates that next year’s freshmen will be the first to use the new equipment.