About the Program
Scientific literacy is a great challenge in our schools. Many teachers do not have the knowledge or resources to carry out state-of-the-art science in their classrooms. The UIUC-Hughes Biotechnology Education and Outreach Program (formerly known as the Footlocker Program) is devoted to training teachers and students in biotechnology concepts and hands-on experiments. These teachers have a profound impact on creating future generations of informed citizens.
This program has two main components: (1) training teachers in biotechnology concepts and applications; and (2) loaning biotechnology equipment and supplies to high school classrooms. In the past ten years, under the direction of Dr. George Kieffer, this outreach program has trained over 400 high school and community college teachers throughout Illinois, including both rural and urban regions.
Biotechnology concepts and hands-on experiments are taught in weekend workshops and summer workshops. These workshops are offered both on the UIUC campus and in off-campus locations, at the request of teachers and school districts. Our program has worked with the Chicago Public School system to provide weekend workshops at Whitney Young Magnet High School in Chicago. These workshops were targeted for high school teachers in the Chicago Public School system. Workshop topics included DNA and Genomes, Genetically Modified Organisms, and DNA Fingerprinting.
In order to provide teachers with the opportunity to perform these laboratory exercises with their students, our program also coordinates an equipment loan program. Teachers who receive training may use loaned biotechnology equipment (in a "footlocker") as well as supplies to carry out biotechnology in their high school classroom. A footlocker contains all of the equipment that is needed for 8 groups to work simultaneously. This includes: agarose gel electrophoresis equipment, a power supply, a microcentrifuge, a micropipette, disposable capillary pipettes, a water bath, and a portable Fotodyne camera (including a white light box).
Teachers may choose to receive supplies for 4 different laboratories: antibiotic screening of bacteria; restriction enzyme digestion and agarose gel electrophoresis of lambda DNA; transformation of bacteria with plasmid DNA; and isolation of plasmid DNA from bacteria ("plasmid miniprep"). New laboratories are currently being developed for bioinformatics.
BEOP also provides programs for children throughout Illinois. These programs include "Wind Your Way Around Your Own DNA" (human DNA isolation) and "Biotechnology in a Lunchbox: DNA Isolation from Fruit". BEOP also coordinates tours of Biotechnology Center laboratory facilities.
For more
information on this outreach program, please contact:
 |
Dr.
Carolyn Zanta, Program Manager phone: 217.265.0816 / fax: 217.244.1224 |
| This program is supported by a grant from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute Precollege Outreach Program, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) School of Integrative Biology, and the UIUC School of Molecular and Cellular Biology. |  |
last updated 2.19.04