Learning is experience

“Learning is experience; everything else is just information,” Albert Einstein once stated, thereby emphasizing the importance of practical application, active engagement, and personal experience for successful learning. True to the motto of this eminent German Nobel laureate, 18 biology teachers from high schools in eastern Saxony gathered last week at the Microbiology Laboratory at Zittau/Görlitz University of Applied Sciences.

Their goal? Hands-on professional development in the field of modern biology and its application: biotechnology. In recent years in particular, biotechnology —with its focus on genetics and genetic technology, including the production of biopharmaceuticals—has gained enormous significance and therefore offers a vast and attractive career field. Antibiotics, vitamins, insulin, the COVID-19 vaccine, and antibodies for cancer immunotherapy are just the best-known examples. Due to the exponentially growing volume of information in this field and the fascination with all that humans can learn from and with cells, the teacher training program was organized by Daniela Jatzwauk, a biology consultant for high schools in eastern Saxony at the State Office for Education and Schools in Bautzen, and Thomas Wiegert, professor of microbiology at HSZG, was organized.

Following the welcome ceremony at Zittau/Görlitz University of Applied Sciences at 9 a.m., Robert Viertel introduced the Upper Lusatia Future Learning Center (ZukLOS) . He explained why not only students but also teachers and students from Saxony will have the opportunity in the future to pursue continuing education in interesting STEM fields in cooperation with the HSZG. Once in the lab, the teachers were then able to conduct their own experiments on the differentiation of bacterial species, methods for the proper cultivation of microorganisms, and the detection of enzyme production and metabolic activity in a biotechnological production strain. They also learned that the saying “Tastes vary” is rooted in nothing other than our genetics, and why Brussels sprouts are by no means everyone’s favorite food.

In addition to the exciting lab experiments, the teachers naturally posed interesting questions to the university staff and engaged in insightful technical discussions. At 5:00 p.m., a communicative, eventful, and successful day came to a close, and everyone agreed that this would not be their last collaboration.