Workshop Spots Open to Science Teachers

Two dozen high school science teachers will attend a summer-school workshop at Pierce College for a week in July to study advances in biotechnology.

The workshop, “Continuing Education in Molecular Biology: The Science and Ethics of Biotechnology,” is free to secondary school teachers interested in learning more about molecular biology, including genetic engineering. The college is accepting registration for the five-day workshop, which will begin July 21.

Taught by Pierce biology instructors Martin Ikkanda, Lyn Koller and Kate Kubach, the workshop is sponsored by two scientific firms, Qiagen Inc. in Chatsworth, and Amgen in Thousand Oaks.

Amgen provides a traveling biotechnology kit for high school teachers in Southern California. To use that kit, Ikkanda said, the teachers have to be trained in the scientific methods.

“This workshop will give them an opportunity to learn, if they don’t know already, how to use those kits in their classrooms,” he said.

“And, we’d like them to implement this science, whether they use the kit or not. Our goal is to help them understand how they can do this in the classroom.”

Participating teachers also will receive a small stipend for their time. Any secondary science teacher, which includes middle school, will be considered on a first-come, first-served basis for the 24 spots available.

The sessions will involve producing, cloning and purifying a DNA molecule, and a portion of each day’s class will be used to discuss the ethics of this technology with Pierce philosophy instructor Betty Odello.

To take the workshop, teachers need not have experience with molecular biology, Ikkanda said.

For more information, call Ikkanda, (818) 710-4288.