Students at Boulder’s Fairview High School swabbed the inside of their cheeks for a DNA sample and then, using state-of-the-art equipment, learned how to magnify and copy it in a way that would make television’s “CSI” folks proud.
And while these slices of DNA didn’t give up any personal secrets — the lab is purposely designed that way — the process did give students an uncommon, hands-on peek into the burgeoning biotechnology field.
Total hit to the school’s lab budget: zero.
Front Range Community College, in collaboration with the Amgen-Bruce Wallace Biotechnology Lab Program, provides professional- grade hardware and training to high schools in its service area.
“I was really interested in biochemistry to begin with,” said Samantha Webster, 17, a senior who plans to pursue a science major in college. “So, just using the actual technology made me more excited to go to college and take part in studies that use these techniques.”
In experiments that replicate technologies and procedures currently at work in the industry, students not only learn principles of molecular biology but also see how the concepts translate into career opportunities.
Initial funding in 2007 provided the impetus for FRCC to spread the program into more than 20 high schools in Adams, Boulder, Broomfield, north Denver, north Jefferson and Larimer counties — areas where sponsoring biotech company Amgen has a presence.
Front Range recently won another grant to keep the program active for another two years and expand it to still more schools.
Brian Cox, who teaches biochemistry as part of the International Baccalaureate program at Fairview, jumped at the chance to incorporate the lab program after FRCC’s Jo Charlton, an adjunct biology professor and director of the Amgen program on the Boulder County campus, broached the idea in an e-mail.
Cox trained in August and introduced the lab to his class this past fall, with a second lab planned for the spring.
“Biotechnology is an incredibly hot field in science right now and likely to remain so in the foreseeable future,” Cox said. “So this is definitely material of practical value to our students.”
For years, he had wanted to do a lab on polymerase chain reaction — one in which students amplify and copy tiny DNA samples — but the required equipment cost about $3,000. And the consumables, the chemicals needed to trigger the necessary reactions, by themselves exceeded his entire lab budget.
But the Amgen program offered a no-cost experience whose preparation and setup also took into account a teacher’s limited class time.
“We bring in thousands and thousands of dollars of high- tech equipment, and it’s the exact equipment that they’re using in research laboratories all over the U.S.,” said Charlton, who did research as a molecular biologist for 12 years before turning to teaching. “We bring the real equipment. Not some dumbed-down, made-in-China stuff but the real deal.”
FRCC staff hold workshops for teachers, training them on the equipment and the chemicals to be used in any of eight labs. The curriculum, developed by Amgen, includes complete instructions and even anticipates potential pitfalls and how to deal with them.
Occasionally, Charlton and other FRCC staff visit the schools to help out.
“A lot of kids, they think, ‘I real ly like biology, but what can I do with this?’ ” Charlton said. “They don’t really understand what biotechnology is about and that this is a career choice, and it’s very cool and exciting stuff. And it really turns some of them on that way.”
Cox’s International Baccalaureate students already come to class motivated. But the biotech exercise seemed to push them to another level.
“This was our culminating lab,” he said. “They thought it was extremely cool to see the machine, to practice the different techniques. A number of students are seriously thinking of careers in biotechnology or bioengineering. These only increase their enthusiasm.”
And lab experiences like this can mean the difference between a student powering through the early, challenging labs at the college level, he added.
“What is it that weeds people out along the way? One thing is being very intimidated in those introductory labs,” he said. “If you have that experience, it real ly increases your self-belief, that this is possible for you. That’s a huge thing for kids.”
Kevin Simpson: 303-954-1739 or ksimpson@denverpost.com
How to participate
The next teacher training will take place in January. Science teachers and school administrators in the Front Range Community College service area who are interested in the program can contact site coordinators for more information:
Adams, Broomfield, north Jefferson and north-metro Denver counties: Dr. Susan Northleaf, susan.northleaf@frontrange.edu
Boulder County: Jo Charlton, josephine.charlton@frontrange.edu
Larimer County: Heidi Smith, heidi.smith@frontrange.edu
