Students and Teachers Explore Cutting-Edge Biotechnology at The Lawrence and In Their Communities

When you think of biotechnology, what’s the first thing that comes to mind? Medicine? Genetically modified plants? Biotech can be used to solve all sorts of unexpected problems, from making fashion more sustainable to designing microbes for regenerative agriculture. The San Francisco Bay Area has become a hub for biotechnology, with many surprising innovations happening right here in our backyard. A program at The Lawrence exposes Bay Area students to the wonders and possibilities of biotech and supports teachers incorporating the cutting-edge field in their classrooms.

The Exploring Biotech program is a partnership between The Lawrence and the Bayer Fund that provides all sixth-grade students in San Leandro and Berkeley with hands-on learning about biotechnology. Developed by the same educators who created our Hands-on Biotech exhibit, the program trained teachers to lead biotech activities and experiments in their classrooms in preparation for a special biotech-themed field trip experience.

“Biotech is not just pharmaceuticals anymore,” said Lee Bishop, The Lawrence’s biotech & design lead. “For example, the Bay Area is the national hub for alternative meat products made with biotech. With so many applications that most people might not think about here in our region, we saw an opportunity to broaden students’ perspective on the kinds of problems that science and biotech can solve.”

The first field trips took place last fall, with some 1,300 sixth graders making their way through the halls and exhibits of The Lawrence. In our Bayer Fund Science Discovery Lab, the students engaged in a guided workshop using biotechnology concepts and techniques to produce a glowing green substance. The sixth graders practiced with the tools of the trade, including micropipettes used to measure and move tiny amounts of liquid.

The students then headed up to our Planetarium for a unique dome experience that zooms into the human body to explore how innovative gene editing technology is being used to fight disease. CRISPR was developed in part at UC Berkeley by Nobel Prize-winning scientist Dr. Jennifer Doudna and her colleagues. The interactive show explains the molecular cause of sickle cell disease and demonstrates through immersive 3D graphics how doctors are using CRISPR to modify DNA in patients with sickle cell disease to potentially cure the difficult to treat blood disorder.

“I loved what my students experienced with the CRISPR model in the planetarium,” said one Berkeley teacher. “I loved how well it meshed with our curriculum…I was able to reference their experience at the museum with what we’re learning in the classroom, and they got it. And that was awesome!”

When the field trip visitors returned to their classrooms, they participated in an interactive reflection exercise contemplating how they might use biotech to solve problems in the future. Students were asked, “If you had a biotech science wand, what would you use it for?” The creative and inspired sixth graders came up with all sorts of potential applications, including addressing deforestation and fighting climate change by limiting cow flatulence.

Over the summer, in an effort to further support teachers integrating biotechnology into their classrooms, The Lawrence invited a select group of Berkeley and San Leandro teachers to visit biotech companies across the Bay Area and learn about what they do. They toured labs and manufacturing facilities and met with real scientists doing work and research on a variety of biotech applications.

For example, at Ginkgo Bioworks in Emeryville, the teachers learned about a new technique to track the spread of disease by studying airline waste water. They visited Bayer’s new facility for manufacturing cell-based medical therapies in West Berkeley. At Amyris, they learned about precision fermentation: a way of “hacking” microbes to turn sugarcane into a wide variety of sustainable products and ingredients.

The teachers also had a whirlwind day in Alameda visiting three biotech companies: Checkerspot, which makes skis from algae oil; Andes Ag, which uses microbes to pull carbon out of the atmosphere; and Scribe Therapeutics, which is designing new ways to diagnose and treat diseases using CRISPR. The visits exposed teachers to diverse and interesting applications of biotech, and opportunities for their students in the field right in their backyard.

“This was such an impactful professional development experience because we really got a firsthand understanding of the powerful and important work that biotech companies in our area are doing,” said one of the teachers who visited the firms.

“This will definitely be shared with many young scientists as we learn about life and how we can use biology to solve problems,” said another.

As the Exploring Biotech program enters its second year this fall, another cohort of sixth-grade scientists are preparing for their biotech field trips to The Lawrence. Our educators published a program brief to share this new model of biotech learning with peers so that it may be replicated in other schools and regions. Ultimately, Lee Bishop and his team hope to discover additional sources of funding to continue and possibly expand the program to more pioneering teachers and future scientists.