Philippines' Agri Dept Holds Biotech Conference for Teachers

The Third National Biotechnology Conference for Teachers was recently held at the Fertilizer and Pesticide Authority Building, Quezon City, Philippines. The event was organized by the Department of Agriculture's Biotechnology Program Implementation Unit and the National Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology (NIMBB). This was attended by 80 college and high school teachers and around 60 students.

In the conference, teachers were encouraged to use innovative approaches in teaching biotechnology. Thus, a TV news program called News Bites was shown in the conference, where experts played as news reporters. An expert from NIMBB reported about Cuba, a developing country where some of the most important biotech companies are located. The government of Cuba has also been supporting the use of biotech. Neil Bascos, on the other hand, introduced an online game called Fold-It, which is a protein-folding activity that enables gamers to predict the 3D structures of proteins based on their amino acid sequence.

A One-Act Play competition was also held for high school students. Students from Mapulang Lupa National High School in Valenzuela City bagged the first prize award. They used song and dance to debate the pros and cons of biotech.

The original article is posted at http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/180835/biotech-comes-alive and http://www.nimbb.upd.edu.ph/?page_id=1117. For more news about biotech in the Philippines, visit http://www.bic.searca.org/ or send an email to bic@agri.searca.org.