Today I had the wonderful opportunity to extern at Invitrogen. Invitrogen is a major Biotech company, and it is the first time in a long time that I had a chance to stretch my science arms. After a long and powerful instructional leadership program, it feels nice to return to my roots. I am joined by two other science teachers. I have had the opportunity to work with Eileen (one of them) before. She truly is a wealth of knowledge and a thoughtful practitioner.

We had a great talk on proteomics and how the company manufactures protein arrays. I am glad to see that I can still comprehend well advanced biotechnology concepts. It was exciting to engage in meaningful questioning with the scientists.

We got a tour of the state-of-the-art lab and then worked with a scientist on a cloning/transformation experiment. The cloning experiment brought me back to my roots of the Berg Lab at UConn. Not much has changed in 15 years. Sure, some steps are now automated, but the science remains a steady constant. We then saw the robot scan and select colonies off of a Petri dish. This was amazing and leads me to my big idea for the day:

Information technology has become positively insidious in science. Without the IT, science moves much slower. With IT, realistic automation trivializes some of the laborious tasks that I (and many others) used to complete on the bench. This brings me to the thought of the growth of information. Not only is IT growing at an alarmingly fast rate, but it carries in its wake other disciplines just as rapidly. Scientists can more efficiently collect data and operationalize it for others seamlessly. The IT effectively manages and databases all of the knowledge. It allows connections to be made more efficiently. Really, an entire industry has developed to support science. It is the merger of science and technology that makes effective change.

Yet, IT remains a tool. This tool is only as powerful as the imagination of the scientists who use it and conjure up new and innovative uses.

From an educational perspective, it is the link between the core knowledge and the 21st-century skills that I so subscribe to . . .