What is Artistic Biotechnology

Biotechnology, the use of organisms or parts of organisms as tools to support and innovate human wants or needs, plays an extensive role in our daily lives. However, biotechnology is minimally addressed in K-12 educational environments. An issue with the lack of biotechnology in curricula is that we, as end-users, are becoming increasingly defined and dependent on biotechnological innovations. We should be able to think critically and form educated decisions about our medical care, the food we eat, and the biotechnological products we do or do not use. The end-user's acceptance of biotechnological solutions to solve a human want or need also may hinge on the ability of the problem-solver to be artistically creative. This chapter introduces artistic biotechnology and provides three exemplars of K-12 classroom lessons anchored in the Design Thinking Model (DTM) with purposeful art integration. The DTM guides instructors and students through solving ill-defined problems for end-users with artistic biotechnological solutions.