Supporting Biotech Jobs In Middle Tennessee Through Student Outreach
In the last few years, the Tennessee Department of Education implemented bioSTEM education standards, enabling schools to use a sophisticated four semester biotechnology curriculum of study.
Now, several Tennessee K-12 classrooms are performing higher level, DNA/RNA/protein lab assays.
A local nonprofit, the Tennessee Coalition for Health Science and BioSTEM Education, has worked to provide financial, technical, and curricular design support to the growing number of schools participating in biotechnology education.
The goal is to empower the next generation of Tennessee health science innovators and lure more biotech companies to Tennessee.
With the aid of local biotech companies like August Bioservices, the partners are working to provide support and improve biotechnology, bioSTEM and health sciences education across the state. August Bioservices recently donated equipment, including a CO2 incubator, for Hillsboro High School students to use and learn about in class.
“Teaching the next generation and having them share our passion for what we do every day, it’s priceless,” said Rockann Mosser, Ph.D., a principal scientist at August Bioservices. “That’s our future – science; it’s where we’re going. There may be someone out there who will be the next person who comes up with the cure for cancer or something amazing, and it’s really cool to think about [August Bioservices] being a small piece of that.”
“We support the teachers; teachers build the workforce. The workforce lures the companies, and it all works together,” said Kurt Riemenschneider, founder and executive director of the Tennessee Coalition for Health Science and BioSTEM Education. “When you fall in love with something in 8th grade, it never leaves you.”
The cooperative efforts between a high-tech CRO/CDMO, a nonprofit coalition, and local schools is being described as a full-circle, win-win situation for everyone.
Source: August Bioservices