In a biology laboratory 3 miles from Spingarn High School, 10th grader Marvin Bethea watches as a sharp lancet dives into his middle finger, and a drop of blood appears. Under a binocular compound microscope, erythrocytes, leukocytes, and neutrophils emerge 400 times their normal size. Marvin counts the odd doughnut shapes, and with the help of an instructor learns why some cells have a nucleus and others don't. There they learn about blood, DNA fingerprinting, cancer and metastasis, the immune system and AIDS, chromosomes, food chemistry and the biological activity of drugs.
Spingarn student gets intimate with science.
The group is updating the D.C. biology curriculum to emphasize molecular genetics, genomics, and biotechnology supported by lesson plans, laboratory protocols, resource lists and alternative teaching formats. One way to do that is to incorporate biotechnology into the school science curriculum. Teachers confer at a meeting last December of the Biotechnology Curriculum Institute. Now, she says, it's time to train students to do the same thing. Kornegay says the curriculum is in line with D.C. public school content and performance standards and with national science education standards.