Bringing 21st-century science into schools

In recent years, biotechnologies have begun to move out of laboratories and into daily life in astonishing ways. For example, the Arctic apple, a genetically modified fruit that doesn’t turn brown when bruised or sliced, is now available in supermarkets across the country. Or consider CAR T-cell therapy, which has allowed hundreds of people with cancer to be treated successfully using their own altered immune cells. These bioengineered cells appear to be more effective than drugs or radiation at targeting cancer cells for elimination.  

The Arctic apple, CAR T-cell therapy, and many other innovations speak to a remarkable paradigm shift in biology, from merely observing nature to actively designing or redesigning it. Thanks to advances in the decoding and editing of genes, it has become possible to recode DNA and change how cells behave. And as the current COVID-19 pandemic makes clear, the need for these approaches is urgent: Today, scientists around the world are relying on these advances in gene editing to design a vaccine to defend against a threat that humankind has not experienced in recent history.  

However, despite the significance of this paradigm shift for scientific, industrial, and commercial applications, it has barely made a ripple in elementary and even secondary life science classrooms. Our K-12 science standards and frameworks do not yet address these new biotechnologies. To date, even instruction in the basic principles of genetics — which are foundational to all biotechnologies — has been extremely limited. Of those few students who do have opportunities to learn about genetics, and whose schools have newer lab equipment, some are taught how to extract DNA. But even those students are rarely given chances to experiment with genetic material and make something new — that is, to biodesign.