Biotechnology Education in Schools

When students deal with Biotechnology in Science or Biology courses at school they get to know a technology that is on the one hand very old – if we think of techniques of making bread or wine – but that on the other hand when we think of genetic engineering for example comprises very new aspects. This “modern” part of biotechnology shows a high potential for solving various problems of our modern world but at the same time it is accompanied by new and especially ethical questions and problems. From the high relevance as well as from the ambivalence of the topic biotechnology a particular responsibility of the science subjects at school concludes. This is the responsibility to – on the one hand inform the students in a sound way of the scientific and technical aspects of biotechnology and – on the other hand to qualify them as the decision makers of the future to cope in a reasoned way with the chances and the risks of biotechnology.