Applied Biotechnology and Bioinformatics Training for High School Teachers

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The Los Rios Community College District in California is partnering with California State University and the University of California at Davis to develop a professional development program for high school science teachers to help them teach biotechnology and bioinformatics in life science and biology classes. The program will serve 75 area high school science teachers who teach 8,000 students. The project is also developing a teacher-mentored internship program to attract 120 community college students into science teaching.The goals of the Applied Biotechnology and Bioinformatics Training program are to (1) create a one-week summer professional development workshop that trains high school teachers to develop and integrate computer-based biotechnology/bioinformatics learning activities into their existing courses, (2) provide teachers with biotechnology/bioinformatics-related job shadowing opportunities, (3) create real-world, scenario-based biotechnology/bioinformatics learning activities that connect into careers in science, (4) develop an internship program that provides prospective science teachers with technology-based biotechnology teaching experiences in actual high school science classrooms, and (5) increase high school student access to and use of computers in biology and life science courses. A curriculum will be disseminated online.