Glacier Peak offers new biotech pathway program
New this year at Glacier Peak is the Biotech Pathway Partnership program. Sixty-seven students are enrolled in this latest addition to the district’s growing Career Technical Education (CTE) offerings. The course will earn students either science or CTE credit towards graduation as well as 5 college credits in molecular cellular biology.
This new pathway presents a state-of-the art opportunity for students to prepare themselves for work in the biotechnology field. All pathway programs are geared to prepare students for either further education or to earn a living wage as a technician in the field of their choice. If a sufficient number of students enroll, this program will also be offered at Snohomish High School beginning next fall.
Tami Caraballo, who won a Science Teaching Excellence award of $10,000 from Amgen last year, teaches the new two-year course. Caraballo used her award to purchase molecular models and a thermal cycler to aid students in DNA research. Fred Hutchison Cancer Research Center, Seattle Bio Medical Research Institute, and the University of Washington have teamed up as curricular and technical support partners, and Amgen has offered the rare opportunity for students to tour their manufacturing plant.
The new pathway focuses on global human health. Students started out this first class with a study of influenza at a molecular level, and will go on to look at sickle cell cancer, HIV, TB, malaria, and prions (which causes mad cow disease). They will review case studies, examine what proteins make a disease deadly, and discuss the ethics involved. Students will also be engaged in real research on a University of Washington project on genetic connections to smoking. “I hope kids will develop solid lab skills and get launched in a direction they haven’t thought about before, science or something connected with it,” says Caraballo.
Snohomish Education Foundation provided initial funding
This program would not be possible without the significant support of the Snohomish Education Foundation, which raised $50,000 in seed money. Janet Kusler, local businesswoman and Foundation board member, recalls, “We wanted to work with the district on special programs to enhance student learning that are typically not covered with public funds.” Kusler read that Bill Mester, district superintendent, was interested in providing a biotechnology program [“Snohomish schools chief going back to school”, The Herald, July 6, 2008.], and the idea took off. Kusler recalls, “Fundraising is never easy, but it was easy to get excited about the program.”
Steve Cotterill, Director of Career and Technical Education, outlines plans to add additional strands to the biotechnology program as funds become available: an agri-biotech program, focused on agriculture and plant science as it relates to food, and a bio-mechanics component, tied to the Machining Pathway Program, to look at bio-robotics. Application has been made for a nearly $1M grant from the National Science Foundation to help fund these programs. Everett Community College is assisting with the grant-writing process.
Cotterill comments, “There are not many communities that have been as generous and supportive of our programs as Snohomish has been—the machining pathway program, now the biotech program, and the support for capital projects and rebuilding of schools. It’s amazing. For the people in this community to do this in the current economic environment is absolutely incredible!”