The Students Have
the Answers
The business community
provides the problems,
and students provide
innovative solutions in
this school-business
partnership.
Debra Gerdes
and Ellen Jo Ljung
Is it possible to build a better dial- ysis device? How could a group of high school students help make that happen? Children receiving peritoneal dialysis treatment for
kidney failure currently use Baxter
International’s HomeChoice dialysis
instrument, but Baxter wondered
whether the instrument could be
improved to meet the specific needs of
children. Biotechnology students at
Lindblom Math and Science Academy
in urban Chicago agreed to help.
As part of their problem-based
learning project focused on obesity and
how it can lead to renal failure and end-stage renal disease, the students learned
about how genes contribute to obesity
and how obesity is related to a
hormonal imbalance that is a precursor
to diabetes. These concepts led students
to an understanding of how diabetes
and insulin relate to kidney failure and
why dialysis is important.
PHOTO COURTESY OF CAROL BLACK WELL
Dorothy White from Tate and Lyle, a corn refiner, supervises students at MacArthur High
School in Decatur as they test for genetically modified organisms in corn products.
As a connection to the biotechnology
curriculum, students explored nutri-genomics, a biotechnology field that
explores the connection between genes
and nutrition. Baxter brought in staff
from IDEO, a design engineering corporation, to help the students learn about
market research, prototype design, and
data analysis. IDEO encouraged
students to think creatively about
customer needs and how to translate
those needs into design options.
Students used all this knowledge to
redesign Baxter International’s peri-
toneal dialysis equipment for juvenile
and pediatric patients. The students’
solution synthesized their newfound
knowledge of biology, marketing, and
design to create prototypes that incorporated all the necessary tubing and
equipment but appealed to the youth
market by being packaged in a compact,
brightly colored, portable case with a
safe way to disconnect from the
machine for short periods. The head of
sales for Baxter’s Renal Division was so
impressed with the innovative thinking
that she showed her staff the prototypes
