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Getting real

If 41 high school biology teachers each teach 150 students a year, how many of their students will bring up a recent news story at the dinner table? If Ray Drenner and Molly Weinburgh have their way, thousands.

Getting real

If 41 high school biology teachers each teach 150 students a year, how many of their students will bring up a recent news story at the dinner table? If Ray Drenner and Molly Weinburgh have their way, thousands.

Erase images of your high school biology class. Forget the lab coat and goggles, the pungent Petri dishes and Latin jargon, the frogs floating in formaldehyde and other unpleasantries that made the course a chore for all but the most dedicated students.

Now imagine learning about HIV, bird flu, stem-cell research and cloning by reading articles in news magazines and doing labs that use a computer instead of a compound microscope.

Students at TCU have enjoyed such biology instruction for six years. Now high school students across the state are translating dry science into their everyday world as two TCU professors share their syllabi with secondary teachers.

Called Contemporary Issues in Biology, the course teaches fundamental concepts of biology by focusing on real-world topics students have heard about. State grants awarded in 2004 spawned new life in many old-school classrooms by allowing biology Professor Ray Drenner, the curriculum’s patriarch, and Molly Weinburgh, education associate professor, to teach 41 high school science teachers how to incorporate contemporary issues into their coursework.

Chris Porter, Advance Placement biology teacher at Haltom High School, adopted TCU’s Contemporary Issues curriculum in 2004 and left his old textbooks to gather dust on the classroom shelves.

“I cover all the information that needs to be covered,” Porter said. “I just cover it in a more interesting way.”

Here’s an example: Explain stem cells through the eyes of Christopher Reeve after he was paralyzed in an equestrian accident. This intersection of biological concepts and pop culture is more likely to make the science relevant.

“There’s context to it. That’s important,” Porter says. “These kids aren’t just looking at mitosis in a vacuum.”

So if each of those 41 teachers teaches 150 students a year, then, yes, at least 6,000 Texas high school students might well mention some unexpected topic over chicken casserole.

In April, word will arrive about a grant from the Howard Hughes Institute that would allow the duo to take their teacher-training program nationwide. Which excites Drenner, who believes such expansion will help more students be better prepared to address biological issues beyond the sterile confines of laboratories.

“If science is taught well, it’s impossible not to connect with the students, with their lives,” he said.