Science Outreach Effort Gives Teachers Chance to Experiment

The 24 high school and college science teachers at Cal Lutheran University on Saturday were preparing for something much more interesting than peering at protozoa under a microscope.

The teachers, from public and private schools throughout Ventura County and Carpinteria, were learning a series of scientific experiments intended to lead pupils into the 21st century.

“We’re hoping to excite people about modern biology instead of 19th-century biology,” said Dave Bowlus, a science instructor at East Los Angeles College in Monterey Park who was showing teachers how to run the experiments in their own classrooms.

“We’ve all been looking through microscopes, and they’ve been doing that since they invented the microscope 300 years ago and started looking at pond water,” he said. “Now we’re looking at and sorting DNA, and that’s something people started doing only 20 years ago.”

This weekend, during the second session of Cal Lutheran’s Science Outreach Program, the teachers learned two experiments: gel-exclusion chromatography, in which they separated a protein from common salt; and splicing a new gene into bacteria.

These exercises--and next week’s experiments replicating DNA and fingerprinting genes--aren’t everyday biology class activities at local schools, but the teachers assembled in Cal Lutheran’s Ahmanson Science Center hope to change that.

Some, such as Doug Robinson of Simi Valley’s Royal High School, have introduced genetics to advanced students with the help of educational materials provided by biotechnology giant Amgen in Newbury Park.

Saturday’s experiments “use a lot simpler materials and procedures, so we’re going to use these first so the students will already have practiced most of the techniques before we move up to the Amgen program,” Robinson said.

One attraction of the Science Outreach Program, sponsored by a $600,000 grant from the James Irvine Foundation, is its adaptability.

The experiments can be tailored to suit students learning the basics in science, as well as those in Advanced Placement or honors classes. They can also be started and finished during a 45-minute classroom period with minimal preparation.

“The idea is to reach students at lots of different levels in lots of different ways,” Bowlus said. “These experiments are set up so that we can do a sophisticated technique and we know we’ll get results, and for the students, that’s a big part of what counts.”

Though the experiments are simple, success isn’t guaranteed.

One duo attempting the chromatography experiment sat in bewilderment because their vials of protein, which they had separated from a salt solution, were murky purple instead of the brilliant blue elsewhere around the class.

“It’s a mystery,” said a puzzled Lisa Boyd, who teaches biology and music to high school students at Ojai Valley School. “I feel that we followed the directions very explicitly.”

Boyd said she hopes to introduce a unit about genetics to students at the small private school as early as this spring.

“This program is really excellent because we don’t have to own any of the equipment,” she said.

“We come and pick up the equipment, the chemicals and everything and take it back to our schools.”

Bowlus said that although the apparatus and materials used in the chromatography experiment would cost about $500 for an average-size class, the machine and other supplies used in the DNA fingerprinting lesson are worth more than $9,000.

“The idea is they’ll borrow it from Cal Lutheran, use it and bring it back,” he said. “It’s zero cost.”

The introduction of experiments involving genetics into a greater number of local classrooms is part of an effort between Cal Lutheran, schools and the county’s biotechnology and health-care industries to keep aspiring young scientists in the region.

However, many more students are likely to benefit from the new knowledge.

“In my experience, teachers are dying to do new things,” Bowlus said. “It’s just that developing new things to do on your own in addition to your usual job is hard.”