PROVIDENCE — Amanda Rode and Maria Guirguis, 14-year-old best friends who share a love of science, learned about DNA — the genetic blueprint for life — in ninth-grade biology.

But that textbook experience paled in comparison to the rush they get when they put real DNA into a spectrophotometer — a device that measures the amount of light DNA absorbs under different conditions.

Amanda and Maria, who will be sophomores in the fall at Warwick’s Pilgrim High School, were among 28 students from 8 high schools who participated in actual DNA research at Rhode Island College this week under the direction of their high school science teachers and two RIC professors, John Williams and Paul Tiskus.

On Wednesday, they took turns explaining — in detail — all the steps that were necessary to properly prepare their little samples for the spectrophotometer, starting with 3-D computer modeling that Amanda said was so “cool” in the way it allowed them to build a sample of a particular compound heavy on phosphorus and paste it right next to the double helix of DNA.

They showed a visitor around their lab space. Not only did they point out the micro pipettes they used to measure infinitesimally small amounts of liquids that served as helpmates in their experiments, but they took time to write down the Greek letter used to signify the micron as a unit of measure. Amanda and Maria were in their glory.

The project aims to immerse budding scientists in professional-grade research while helping high school teachers get comfortable guiding youngsters in hands-on inquiry.

On Wednesday morning, Amanda and Maria rushed out of the second-floor lab at the Clarke Science Building on the RIC campus to consult their science teacher on an urgent matter:

How — exactly — should they load the small quartz case containing the DNA sample into the spectrophotometer?

Their question brought forward the attention to detail that is part of the “language of science,” observed their Pilgrim High science teacher, Norm DuBois.

“High school students are capable of doing this,” he said.

And research, DuBois said, isn’t “listening to people talk,” the way high school students have been taught for centuries.

“It’s a very active thing,” DuBois said.

AMANDA AND MARIA, working as a team, were assigned one of six chemical compounds to test in combination with DNA from the sperm of salmon — kept on ice in a cooler in the lab.

First they made a three-dimensional computerized model of their compound. They clicked on their computer screen to bring up a menu of the periodic table of the elements and selecting a particular combination of carbon, phosphorus and other atoms.

When the model was finished, they added the image of their assigned compound to a new page dominated by the double helix of DNA.

The computer program that had generated the images also predicted whether their assigned compound was close enough to the DNA to influence its behavior.

Like professional researchers who look for cures for cancer and other deadly diseases, Amanda and Maria used the computer modeling program to guide them in determining how to do the actual experiment with the spectrophotometer.

The “big picture,” said Pilgrim science teacher Michael Lobdell, is whether the close proximity of various compounds influence the way the double helix of the DNA unzips, or melts, at various temperatures.

The DNA “needs to come apart and the code needs to be transferred to proteins that do important jobs,” he said.

Each experiment yields tiny bits of information, Lobdell said. In scientific research, the big picture emerges after months and years of such experiments.

Williams, a professor of chemistry at RIC, and Tiskus, who teaches science education, obtained a $45,000 federal grant through the Rhode Island Office of Higher Education to finance the three-year program in hands-on research.

The grant covers a one-week summer course for the students and separate training for their teachers for each of the three years, as well as the cost of hardware and software that can be loaned out to participating teachers in the eight high schools during the fall, winter and spring terms. The program is in its second year.

Besides Pilgrim, the participating schools are Warwick Veterans Memorial High School, Times2 Academy in Providence, Woonsocket High, South Kingstown High, Exeter-West Greenwich High, William M. Davies Career and Technical High School in Lincoln and Charles E. Shea High School in Pawtucket.

gmacris@projo.com