With recent heated public discussion on the desirability or otherwise of genetically modified foods, it is clear that public is very interested in this aspect of biotechnology.
But the students who are at school today will be grappling in their adult years with something even more radical than GM foods. The completion in a few years' time of the massive international Human Genome Project, which is aimed at identifying the entire human genetic code, will have unprecedented medical and social consequences.
The distribution of a free EU-funded CD-ROM on biotechnology to second-level schools is therefore timely. It covers everything from yeast to humans, and suggests various experiments for students alongside a detailed explanation of what biotechnology and genetic engineering are all about. The units are aimed at 16- to 19-year-old students, and are being translated into the different European languages. University of Limerick researchers Catherine Adley and Cecily Leonard have been involved in development of the material, as the Irish representatives on the European Network called EIBE (European Initiative in Biotechnology Education).
While the material is already available on the Internet at www.reading.ac.uk/NCBE, not every school can provide sufficient access time to the World Wide Web for students and teachers to benefit from the large amount of material there. The CD-ROM is aimed at providing another, cheaper means of access. It will run on Windows-operated PCs and on Apple Macs.
The material is very well illustrated in colour, and it is possible to print off as many copies as needed from the CD-ROM, using an Adobe Acrobat reader which can be downloaded free from www.adobe.com. This reader is needed because the material is stored in Portable Document Format (PDF), which means that the layout, typefaces and colours are maintained irrespective of the computer being used to print it. Downloading should be faster.
"Teachers are free to print as many copies as they want, and can also make overhead transparencies," Dr Adley told E&L. "No copyright is enforced except where there is commercial gain."
"Another advantage of using a CD-ROM is that the teacher has more control of what the students are looking at - they can't be surfing other things, as they could with the Internet," she added.
Take the transgenic-plants unit as an example: this explains the essential scientific principles and technologies involved in making a transgenic plant, with a very clear illustration of how to do it. It says why field trials are important, and gives information about risk assessment and EU regulations. It also contains suggestions for reflections on the benefits and the problems that are foreseen with the generation and worldwide use of transgenic plants.
EIBE was set up in 1991 with EU funding. Its aim is to promote skills, enhance understanding and facilitate public debate through improved education in European schools and colleges. Today, EIBE is a network of biotechnology educators from 27 centres in 18 countries.
The network is centred on the development of EIBE units for in-service teacher training and initial teacher training. Course units developed to date include microbes and molecules; DNA profiling (DNA fingerprinting); biscuits and biotechnology; issues in human genetics; fermentation technology; DNA model; human genetics - debate of a human dilemma; practical immunology; transgenic plants; transgenic animals; a model European Council - a debate about pre- implantation genetic diagnosis; and the Human Genome Project.
Future units are: novel foods; biotechnology and the third worlds; biotechnology and the environment; biotechnology past, present and future and the EIBE family.
