Educational Outreach

One of the key goals of the company is scientific outreach. It is the company's belief that through public education, whether in their communities or schools, that the people would be able to make more informed choices about genetically modified products.

It was therefore not surprising to know that Monsanto has been involoved with various people from the academia to help develop Biotechnology Educational Packages for High Schools as early as 1989!

This was also a very valuable resource to me as an educator. I was given full access to their material and made necessary copies of the materials. From this point on, modifications can be made to adapt them to the Singapore School environment. These packages come complete with a pedagogical strategy upfront, student worksheets and teacher notes.

Examples of these topics include

• dry activities to illustrate the DNA molecule
• dry activities to illustrate the transcription and translation processes
• human dramatization of the transformation and bacterial production of insulin
• wet/laboratory activities for bacterial transformation
• wet/laboratory activities for carrot regeneration in lab
• a dry lesson on genetic disorders