Electrophoresis

Electrophoresis is like playing a game where you sort different toys by size. Except instead of toys, it's tiny pieces of DNA or protein that we can't see with our eyes!

Imagine lining up a bunch of toys on a table. If we use a magnet, the toys that have metal in them will stick to the magnet and move closer to it. Electrophoresis works the same way, except we use electricity instead of a magnet.

We put the tiny pieces on a special gel, which is like a squishy jello. When we turn on the electricity, it creates a big "force field" that makes the pieces move through the gel.

But here's the fun part: because each piece has a different size and shape, they move at different speeds through the gel. So, the big ones don't move as far as the small ones, and they all get sorted into different spots depending on how fast they moved.

After the electricity is turned off, we can look at the gel and see all the pieces sorted out by size! This helps scientists learn more about DNA and proteins, like which ones are in a sample and how much there is of each one.