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Foundation for Blood Research
Outcomes, Challenges, and Resources
Outcomes
- 1. More than 5,800 students were beneficiaries of their teachers' attendance at the institutes, and 1,350 students had the opportunity to use lab kits obtained at the institutes.
- 2. Participating teachers felt they had had influence on other teachers in their teaching of biotechnology. Examples include use by other teachers of concepts, materials, and labs that participating teachers received through the project; and the successful introduction of DNA electrophoresis as a regular part of their science department curriculum.
Challenges
- 1. Getting teachers back for the update was difficult, mainly because Maine's Learning Results, the Learning Standards for the State, had just been completed. As a result, all Maine public schools were mandated to implement the Learning Results, and many teachers were required to attend meetings during the time of our Update, and indeed, for most of that summer.
- 2. Increasing the response rate for the evaluation survey proved a challenge, again largely due to the fact that many of our participating teachers are carrying extra class loads (because of science teacher shortages), trying to align their curricula with national and state teaching standards, and are generally overwhelmed by how much they have to do.
Resources
- A Handbook of Immunology-Based Activities for Pre-college Classes: The purpose of this handbook is to present to pre-college classes the use of immunologic techniques in the laboratory. The exercises were designed by teachers and field-tested by teachers and students. They are intended to introduce students to the world of biotechnology and help them understand some of the laboratory techniques used. Each exercise starts with information for the teacher, followed by information for students. Figures and tables for each exercise appear aat the end of the student material.
- Chances' Choices: This is a curriculum unit designed to demonstrate the practical applications of human genetics. Using a series of connected scenes, the unit follows the various members of the Chance family as they discover and deal with a variety of genetic risks to their health. Structured in a case-study format, Chances' Choices presents not only clinical and laboratory information about a variety of common genetic disorders and the technologies used to test for them, but also explores the social, legal, economic and ethical issues that families in these situations typically face.
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