SCIENCE OUTREACH
DEPARTMENT OF BIOLOGY
Bloomington Life Sciences Partnership
The Bloomington Life Sciences Partnership is a collaboration among the Life Sciences industries in the Bloomington area, the local school systems, IU, Ivy Tech, and the Bloomington Economic Development Corporation.
The BLSP was formed in response to the rapid growth of Life Sciences industry in the Bloomington region. One of its primary goals is to help residents of Southern Indiana acquire the educational background and skills to join this growing industry.
A meeting of industry representatives and educators was held in 2005, with the express purpose of identifying those skills that Life Sciences employers need in new employees--many of whom are hired directly out of high school, and receive on-the-job training. The employers identified three major needs:
* Good Communication Skills. Employees must be able to discuss technical and scientific matters with each other and with government auditors who periodically visit the site for inspections.
* Good Math Skills. Some of the technical matters require simple mathematical calculations.
* Scientific Thinking. The major value of science classes, in terms of the job skills in much of this industry, is that they provide students with the opportunity to work with puzzing information (data) and make sense of it. Because the Life Sciences industry is very fast-moving, it is tremendously important to be able to work with new information that was unavailable only a short time ago. Employees must be able to think analytically and creatively to solve new problems as they arise.
supported in part by grants from the National Science Foundation
last updated: December 20, 2008
