Grant to fund biotech training partnerships

Ivy Tech will pair with IU, Owen Valley
By Steve Hinnefeld 331-4374 | shinnefeld@heraldt.com
May 30, 2007

Ivy Tech Community College-Bloomington has won a $549,798 federal grant to develop biotechnology training with several partners, including Owen Valley High School and Indiana University.

The Advanced Technological Education grant comes from the National Science Foundation, better known for funding laboratory research and colleges and universities.

“We think it’s a significant development,” said John Whikehart, the Ivy Tech-Bloomington chancellor.

The initiative includes:

• Developing new Ivy Tech certificate programs in biotechnology.

• Creating realistic job-training opportunities for students.

• Helping Owen Valley implement its life-science career academy.

• Providing professional development opportunities for high school teachers.

It gets under way this summer with a two-week course at Owen Valley aimed at equipping teachers with the skills to use hands-on and project-based methods for teaching their students.

“It’s inquiry-based learning,” said Tom Wallace, an agricultural sciences teacher at Owen Valley. “It’s, ‘Let’s get away from the textbook and the overheads and the lecture and let’s engage with students with something that’s relevant.’”

Sengyong Lee, the Ivy Tech-Bloomington biotechnology program chairman, is the principal investigator for the grant. Co-principal investigator is Jose Bonner, an Indiana University biology professor and science education expert.

Also involved is the Northeastern Biomanufacturing Collaborative Center at New Hampshire Community Technical College. Sonia Wallman, director of the center, will work with the Ivy Tech and IU team and advise them on curriculum, said Jim Smith, the Ivy Tech academic dean.

Kim Tucker, the Owen Valley principal, said the project should help establish a standards-based and real-world curriculum for the school’s life-science academy and help students make connections with area life-science employers, projected to add up to 1,500 jobs over five years.

Owen Valley created its career academies in 2004, with freshmen kept together in a transition academy and older students grouped in four academies focused around career themes and taught by multidisciplinary teams of teachers.

Wallace said one goal is to help students understand the connection between school and work. “My father’s generation, they went to Indianapolis to work for Chevrolet and in the factories,” he said. “This generation needs to be ready to do test tubes and gram scales and lab protocols — that will be our job market.”