Teacher’s Guide to Biotech Academy
Biotech Academy offers biotechnological teaching materials and/or tools for use primarily in upper secondary education and secondary school in primary school. Common to all our teaching offers is that they are free of charge and developed with a view to meeting the academic goals for the lower secondary school and/or the upper secondary biotechnology lines.
Our purpose is to create quality education and enthusiasm among young people about biotechnology, biology and chemistry. Biotech Academy is non-profit, and material and operations are financed by foundations. The current operation is funded by the Novo Nordisk Foundation.
Courses
The courses on the website constitute Biotech Academy’s DNA. The courses are based on the academic goals and often put contemporary issues into perspective, and incorporate practical and interactive exercises in the teaching. They are divided into elementary school and high school.
Most courses are built up in blocks, consisting of theory and collecting tasks. Subsequent blocks then build on the previous theory and assignment so that an overall overview and perspective is formed within the topics. The block division creates opportunities for you as a teacher to use the entire course or simply incorporate individual parts of the courses into your own teaching.
To find a relevant course, you can orient yourself on the front page of the course for inspiration. Then you can access the teacher’s guide where an overview of the academic content and exercises can be found.
Trial kits
Biotech Academy has a number of experiments you can use in your teaching. Some of them we produce material for ourselves and send out free of charge (including shipping) as test kits after online ordering. The experimental sketches have associated teaching material and can work excellently as part of the teaching courses. Trial kits can be ordered on our order portal (except Biosensor). You can find an overview of all our trials in our trial overview.
Algae droplets and photosynthesis
The algae experiment with the production of algae droplets gives the students a visual and practical example of photosynthesis. As part of the course “The Green Revolution“, the students will gain insight into the importance and opportunities of the sea – with a special focus on algae. The experiment can of course be ordered and carried out in your teaching without the use of the rest of the course material. The experiment can also be ordered individually for students who want to use it in connection with a large assignment.
The algae experiment is targeted at 7th-9th grade level. If you want to do it with your high school class, we recommend taking advantage of the section on spectrophotometry. In this way, to increase the level of difficulty to an appropriate level for the students. The experiment takes about 1 hour to perform, followed by a 2-hour wait for the result.
Biosensor
The biosensor experiments are aimed at upper secondary education. The experiments use genetic modification (transformation) to give beautiful visual results, and based on feedback, have been designed to be carried out in one module (90 minutes).
The experiments are approved for use in upper secondary school laboratories if you receive an approval from the subject consultant. Please note that the teacher must have certain basic materials and be trained in GMO laboratory techniques. There are two different test kits you can order, case 1 and case 2, which are designed to be carried out simultaneously or separately (without case 1 being a precursor to the other).
Bread baking enzymes
The experiment with bread baking enzymes is primarily aimed at high school and is linked to the course ‘Enzymes and bread baking‘. We emit three kinds of enzymes (amylase, xylanase, peptidase) that are added to a bread dough and the effect of the enzymes is observed.
Pseudomonas fluorescence
The experiment is primarily aimed at upper secondary schools and is associated with the course ‘From Darwin to Biotechnology‘. The aerobic soil bacterium Pseudomonas fluorescens has the special property that it develops rapidly to adapt to its surroundings and that mutants with a different morphology can arise in their colonies. This experiment supports the theory of evolution by observing changes in the P. Fluorescens strain depending on environmental influences.
Biostriben
Biostriben is Biotech Academy’s film corner and visual education initiative. Here, topics are covered with one or more short and illustrative teaching videos that uncover key concepts from the academic goals.
In the primary school category, you can also choose to sort into ‘Films’, which are inspiring, easily understandable and visually beautiful stories about biotechnological phenomena.
Biowiki
Our biowiki contains short descriptions of basic concepts, e.g. protein, polarity or green grains, usually with explanatory illustrations. The biowiki is also the word base for the difficult concepts used in the courses. Here, the Biowiki is used for supporting explanations of these.
The Virtual Laboratory
The Virtual Laboratory is an online laboratory simulator intended for high schools. Here, your students can perform one of six different experiments with tools you may not have available in high school. It is an exciting interactive form of learning that, as the user performs laboratory experiments in the simulator, visualizes what is happening at the microscopic level. The laboratory is browser-based, easily accessible and you can decide for yourself how a virtual laboratory experiment should support your class’s teaching.
There are also several high school courses that incorporate experiments in the Virtual Laboratory.