(Raleigh, N.C.) Twenty teachers from middle and high schools across North Carolina who merge biotechnology and agriculture in their classrooms are honing their knowledge and skills this week, with an eye on feeding and fueling North Carolina’s agricultural future.

The professional development session, “Biotechnology for High School Agricultural Education,” is being held on the North Carolina State University campus. It’s one of nine workshops being sponsored around the state this summer by the North Carolina Biotechnology Center.

The ag biotech teacher workshop is directed by Beth Wilson, Ed.D., associate professor in the Department of Agricultural and Extension Education at North Carolina State University.

Instructors are Charlotte Farin and Chad Jordan, Ph.D.s. Farin is a professor and the director of graduate programs in NC State’s Department of Animal Science, and is also a member of the Physiology, Biotechnology & Functional Genomics faculty. Jordan is a teaching assistant professor and the coordinator for undergraduate programs in the Department of Plant Biology at NC State.

The workshop, which runs through Friday, involves classes on the NC State campus and field trips to nearby sites, including the Biotechnology Center.

“We’re delighted that we could include this important educational specialty into our annual summer workshop program,” said Bill Schy, Ph.D., manager of the Biotechnology Center’s Education and Training Program. “The tools of biotechnology have become integral in modern agriculture, increasing productivity while reducing the amount of pesticides needed to grow crops.

The Biotechnology Center has trained more than 1,500 teachers since it started the summer workshops in 1987. Schy said the sessions are adjusted each year to maintain topical relevancy with a mix of specialized and introductory workshops.

Hosted at  community college and university campuses across the state, this year’s workshops have included an introductory session, in Charlotte, for middle school teachers; one at Alamance Community College to help advanced instructors learn to use microarrays, or “gene chip” technology, as a classroom teaching tool; a workshop in Wilmington focused on marine biotech; and five introductory workshops that help teachers expand science concepts using biotechnology examples that students find interesting and relevant.

Besides supporting the teachers’ participation in their continuing education endeavors, the Biotechnology Center also gives the teachers free lab supplies and allows them to borrow lab equipment and educational videos upon completion of a workshop.

Topics of the ag biotech lectures, demonstrations and hands-on activities include:

* Careers in agricultural biotechnology
* Best practices for equipment needed to teach biotechnology in agricultural education
* Current biotechnology research, regulations and trends in food crops
* Current biotechnology research, regulations and trends in animal production
* Ethical, legal and social implications of using biotechnology in the agriculture industry
* Sustainability and agricultural biotechnology

Activities in the ag biotech session include:

* Growing and caring for Arabidopsis (a small, fast-growing flowering plant widely used by scientists to study developmental processes)
* Plant tissue culture
* Aseptic technique
* Genetic engineering of plants using Agrobacterium
* Preparing, staining and disposal of agarose gels
* Preparation of bovine semen and oocytes for in vitro fertilization
* Marker-assisted selection of animals
* A field trip to Monsanto

The Biotechnology Center is a private, non-profit corporation supported by the N.C. General Assembly. Its mission is to provide long-term economic and societal benefits to North Carolina by supporting biotechnology research, business, education and strategic policy statewide.