On the cutting edge

Micro-organisms are single-celled animals currently making a big noise. Technology is enabling scientists to use these organisms to change lives. New biotechnology companies are multiplying faster than a bacterial culture on a sunny windowsill and make up a multibillion-dollar industry.

Bringing this cutting-edge science into the classroom is no easy matter: it is often expensive and always requires a major commitment from the teachers and schools involved. Still, it was not too many years ago that bringing computers into schools looked next to impossible, and biotechnology is too important not to be included in the high school curriculum.

Here, two pioneers talk about the efforts they have made to introduce their students to biotechnology. Zoltan Koritar is bringing the science of recombinant DNA to his classes in Toronto. Patricia Beecham has set up a laboratory at her school in Etobicoke in which her students learn techniques for handling micro-organisms. Both teachers strongly encourage schools and school boards to look very hard for ways to use their resources to make biotechnology studies available.

Mr. Koritar and Ms. Beecham believe the chief reason for developing a biotechnology or microbiology program at the high school level is to give students hands-on experience with new technology. Growing and using micro-organisms gives students a considerable head start on the work they will do in university and beyond in this field.

Biotechnology or microbiology courses, these teachers say, work very well in co-op programs with companies and research facilities using these new techniques.

• Setting up a biotechnology program

  Zoltan Koritar
  Northern Secondary School Toronto, Ontario

• The tools you need

  Patricia Beecham
  Martingrove Collegiate Institute
  Etobicoke, Ontario