Poster: Education

Abs # 11: III. “Modern techniques in plant biotechnology.” a project-based approach to teaching agricultural biotechnology for high school teachers and students.

Presenter:	Longo, Chip , chipperdoo@msn.com
Authors	Longo, Chip  (A) (D)  DeNoia Jr., Michael G. (C)   Johnson, Jeffery C. (B)   Stevens, Gregg R. (B)   Pedraza, Jessica  (C)   Kunajukr, Milan  (C)   Delmonico, Courtney  (B)   Peabody, Hillary  (B)   Brady-Wood, Matt  (B)   Bockstael, Andrew  (B)   Peterson, Courtney  (B)   Nelson-Vasilchik, Kim  (A)   Hu, Qian  (A)   Luo, Hong  (A)   Kausch, Albert P (A) (D)
Affiliations:	(A): HybriGene Inc. (B): South Kingstown High School (C): New London High School (D): life edu.org

A new experiential two-semester course which presents a comprehensive approach to the technology of plant biotechnology was developed for the undergraduate level (see accompanying abstracts). We have tested the feasibility of presenting this course to high school teachers who in turn mentor groups of high school students through the same course presented to undergraduates. The mentoring teachers worked with teams of high school students (grades 9-12) conducting cell culture and gene transfer procedures to recover stably transformed plants of rice. High school teachers and students together have contributed to the development a functional genomics project in rice cv Oryza sativa ssp. japonica using cv. Taipei 309 to produce the necessary initial trangenics to establish a library of randomly dispersed Ds elements throughout the rice genome. All of the procedures to produce transgenic rice plants via Agrobacterium-mediated transformation and subsequent plant regeneration are carried out by the high school students. Ancillary procedures, such as photomicroscopy, biolistics, transient expression assays, and molecular analysis are also performed. This project-based approach provides teachers and students with an excellent exposure to real-world laboratory science and the fundamental techniques in plant biotechnology. We have clearly demonstrated that this approach is feasible to students at the high school level and this course may serve as a model for other high school and vocational programs.