Massachusetts Life Science Laws and Homeschooling

Within the last month, Governor Deval Patrick signed into law a new legislation to "implement a comprehensive life sciences program for Massachusetts". The legislation was signed into law on June 16, 2008 and was the result of numerous stake holder meetings, discussions, and bi-partisan con-census. This bill focuses on several key areas to stimulate the life science industry within the Commonwealth, including and most significantly to educators, workforce training. The idea is to simply grow jobs in the life sciences sector in Massachusetts, by improving standards of teaching, scholarship and training.

Coupled to this has been the Governor's resent introduction of an Education Action Agenda which will seek to reform the States education system by 2020. The really great news about the new life science legislation, is the benefit it will create for students interested in entering the life sciences arena. In fact, we have already seen an incredible explosion in the expansion of science, particularly biology and biotechnology programs in community, state and private colleges and universities across Massachusetts. But how will this legislation benefit home schooled students?

Many of these students have limited access to laboratories, but an incredible wealth of knowledge in using internet search tools to research topics in wide ranging areas. This is a gold mine waiting to happen for home schooled students and parents wishing to maximize the learning environment for the college bound. Why you ask? Simple. With the incredible pace at which biology and chemistry data are being churned out by scientists, huge biological and chemical databases are being generated. The result has been an exponential growth of information to be mined, probed, analyzed, categorized and used to generate useable products from healthcare to bio-fuels and everything in between!

Any student skilled in web-based search and retrieval tools for genes, proteins and chemicals, will have a place in this new bio-economy. This area will be a key strength of the home schooled student, if guided correctly. In my next commentary, I'll talk about the 10 key skills home schooled students need to have in their arsenal as they move toward careers in the life or medical sciences.

Dr. Gregory I. Simpson