By KEITH RYAN CARTWRIGHT
Rutherford County Schools
Nine weeks into her senior year of high school, Kelsey Swor has a pretty good idea of what she wants to do with the rest of her life.
Inspired by her experiences in the new Bio STEM pathway being offered at Oakland High School and coupled with the impact her nine-year-old brother has had on her life, Swor is considering a career as a biomedical engineer.
Her brother has struggled with ADHD and has been through a lot.
Swor would like to help develop a treatment with less severe side effects than Adoral and the first quarter of the 2020–2021 school year helped her to realize she can, in fact, make an impact.
“He’s not himself when he’s on it … and the side effects of him coming off are even worse,” Swor said. “I want to do something for kids who are experiencing that — to help.”
Melissa Bunch is in her first year of teaching in Rutherford County and brought with her a Bio STEM pathway that offers four years of coursework — STEM Biotechnology 100, 200, 300 and 400 — at Oakland High School.
The latest career and technical education pathway is brand new for the 2020–2021 school year.
“The overall umbrella of the program is the central dogma of molecular biology,” Bunch said. “It is DNA creates DNA, and DNA makes RNA, and RNA makes proteins; and the protein is responsible for some traits that you can see or maybe not see in an organism, so they learn how to genetically engineer bacteria.”
Bunch wrote the entire program — including statewide standards for all four courses — while at her previous school and it was approved by the Tennessee State Department of Education in 2015.
“I emailed those out to industry people and to university people for feedback before we submitted them to the state,” Bunch said. “I started teaching the first course in fall of 2016.”
That program was the first in the state.
“We’re in the lab most of the time,” Bunch explained, “and kids really like doing science. You can’t learn science without doing it — being in the lab — and being involved. I don’t use the textbook.”
The biotech program is rigorous, but, over the past nine weeks, Bunch’s hands-on approach has resonated with students.
