Education Corner

How are educational curricula developed? Who sets the standards? How do companies that develop science education kits keep up with this and design their kits around the curricula? Find out in this article.

“Inquiry-based” is the new buzzphrase in science education. But what do these learning practices look like on the ground? Visit one high school in Southern California and find out about this new approach to teaching science.

From running science experiments on the home field of World Series champions the San Francisco Giants, to connecting with makers in “the nerd nest,” to hundreds of new classroom events, 2014 has been an exciting year for the Bio-Rad Science Ambassador Program. Learn about the latest highlights in this corporate social responsibility program and watch a video of participating students and scientists.

The Science Ambassador Program continues to grow in its mission to connect working scientists with students at the elementary, middle, and high school level. This month, bioradiations catches up with Bio-Rad’s corporate citizenship initiative at two events: the USA STEM festival in Washington, D.C., and a special day of science in Bio-Rad’s home town, Hercules, CA.

Retired satellite engineer Dan Saldana is helping Valley Christian High School in San Jose, CA build a program to send student experiments to the International Space Station. To study microbial growth in microgravity, Saldana and his students turned to Bio-Rad’s pGLO bacterial transformation kits. Learn about the high-flying travels of these glowing bacteria and the science learning that resulted.

Jefferson County, Tennessee, faced tight school budgets and a mandate to “teach to the test” that left little room for hands-on science learning. Learn how biology professor Lisa Eccles worked to reverse this trend by getting involved with the Science Ambassador program, Bio-Rad’s fast-growing initiative to spark excitement about life science in primary school classrooms.

“If we want students to be biologists, let’s start being biologists,” says Ray Cinti, a science teacher at Convent of the Sacred Heart High School in San Francisco. Find out how Cinti’s class is accomplishing this by doing real research on Coast Redwoods genetic diversity using the Biotechnology Explorer Cloning and Sequencing Explorer series.

Take a closer look at Bio-Rad’s initiative to bring scientists into K–12 schools in North America by following three Ambassadors as they go into classrooms. Find out more about what this program offers students, teachers, and researchers.

Following a successful pilot effort in early 2012, Bio-Rad is proud to announce the official launch of the Bio-Rad Science Ambassador Program, which empowers scientists to engage directly with local schools to build student interest in the sciences and increase access to quality science education.