Stem Cell Biology for HS Teachers

I recently attended a 1 day Stem Cell Biology workshop for High School teacher's held at the Whitehead Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The event held on Tuesday November 11th 2008, was sponsored by the Broad Institute, the Whitehead Institute, the Harvard Stem Cell Institute and the Biotechnology Institute. Lots of heavy wait scientists, science and discussion.

The event was fantastic, presenting a broad range of issues including;

1. How to include Stem cell biology in the high school teaching curricula (the most difficult issue to address),

2. Cutting edge research being conducted now and the rapidly evolving clinical applications, presented by Rick Young (Whitehead Institute), Debra Auguste (Harvard) and Harvey Lodish (Whitehead Institute) and

3. The ethical and legal ramifications of the science now and in the future.

It was clear that participant's, although excited about the field and willing to introduce the concepts to their students, were mindful of the glaring obstacles to delivery easily in the near term. Challenges in imparting the science as well as overcoming social and ethical barriers to the science were all raised as significant issues.

Foremost on the teacher’s minds however, seemed to be the strategies that would be needed to teach the concepts within the scope of the MCAS framework. The second appeared to be ensuring that the teacher's were able to gain access to the type of knowledge needed to teach the subject in an age appropriate way. And third, the identification of suitable experiments and access to relevant literature that could excite and provide unique learning opportunities for both students and teachers.

We were given tours of both the Broad and the Whitehead and were provided with a unique opportunity to see some of the automated technologies driving biological research. What also crossed my mind was the critical need for CRITICAL THINKERS at these levels. The high through technologies now used in research, both in industry and academia, are driving the need for creative thinkers and the point was continuously stressed that the middle and high school level is were this process starts!

I'm looking forward to further engagements and activities with these groups of teachers, researchers and communications experts over the up coming months.