North Carolina teachers get hands-on bioeconomy and bioenergy training

In North Carolina, sixteen high school science and career and technical education (CTE) teachers attended a four-day hands-on professional development workshop at NC State in July. The workshop was part of the USDA-funded Sustainable Bioproducts and Bioenergy Program (SBBP), a collaboration between NC State’s College of Natural Resources and College of Education.

The high school science and CTE teachers have successfully completed their first year in the Sustainable Bioproducts and Bioenergy Program (SBBP), which also involved a one-day orientation in August 2018 and completion of two graduate-level distance education courses covering science, engineering and sustainability topics related to bioproducts and bioenergy.

The four-day summer workshop gave teachers an opportunity to learn new bioeconomy labs and classroom activities, including biorefining pineapple to make paper and bioethanol, creating bio-based plastic films, and constructing models to represent the effects of climate change. All of the labs were designed to integrate technology, such as Vernier probeware and iPads that show real-time data collection and graphs.