Making glow-in-the-dark bacteria. This simple, visually arresting experiment is one of several commonly performed with high school teachers and their students at a Saturday afternoon workshop at Carnegie Mellon University. While the experiment is fun to do, it also tells you something important: Bacteria can -- and do -- pick up and express new genes.

This adaptability can help explain things such as drug resistance or how a normally benign bug may come to infect you this winter. From across the region, high school teachers and their students routinely come to CMU for these weekend workshops. Why? Because many simply don't have the lab space or the equipment to do experiments.

Unfortunately, this situation is not out of the ordinary, according to a report issued last month by the National Research Council, which found that high school laboratory experiences are woefully inadequate. In our region, school money for science labs can amount to far less than $1,000 per school per year.

Now more than ever, universities must partner with state initiatives, foundations, community groups and corporations to augment school budgets. The work is piecemeal, but essential. For instance, last year one faculty member here worked with nearly 150 high school students during weekend laboratory workshops. And she mentored many other students on their science fair projects.

The NRC report points out the painful reality that researchers and educators can't even agree on "how to define high school science laboratories or ... their purposes." Their purposes? One purpose has been clearly articulated by others responding to this report: Providing laboratory experiences ultimately cultivates a new generation of scientists who can ask questions, solve problems and ensure our country's economic competitiveness.

Through just one summer program, the Pennsylvania Governors School for the Sciences, we've seen many bright students become scientists as they have their first opportunity to make nanomaterials called buckyballs, study gene expression in a sea urchin embryo or use artificial intelligence to create a computer backgammon player. Former graduates of the program include the director of an early cancer detection program at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and the head of Intel Research Pittsburgh.

Such programs as the Pennsylvania Junior Science Academy and the Siemens Westinghouse Science and Technology Competition are other excellent avenues to develop student research talent.

But the purpose of laboratory investigations is much broader, in my view. In mentoring college freshmen, I've found that an early laboratory experience provides critical thinking skills every person should have. The skills you build doing experiments transfer directly to life. You learn to concentrate on questions. If something goes wrong in your experiment, you learn to trouble-shoot it until things go right.

Lab experiences make you appreciate what evidence means. They give you the ability to assess quality in ways that are much more systematic, ways that provide a rational basis for making decisions about basically anything, from changing how you cook something to deciding what kind of toaster oven to buy.

Lab experiences also give you the skills to sort through the facts on bigger issues we face, such as global warming, disaster recovery, alternative energy sources and evolution. The NRC report supports this idea, stating that laboratory experiences enable students to develop what we call "scientific reasoning." There's also the case to be made that just by doing experiments you learn about intellectual activity and the pleasure of it.

According to the NRC report, educators often lack opportunities to improve their laboratory training. In my experience, this is true. Many high school and middle school teachers feel that they don't have enough instruction to teach laboratories and connect what's learned in the lab with what's learned in the classroom. And yes, we also should be thinking about middle school, because this is the critical time when we can capture a student's interest in science or lose him or her forever.

The Governor's Institute for Physical Science Educators at Carnegie Mellon and other Governor's schools across the state are one way to help. The two-week summer program allows 40 teachers at all pre-college levels to interact with each other and college science faculty, attend presentations on content and conduct hands-on projects they can take back to their classrooms.

Other programs here and at nearby universities and colleges offer workshops that provide middle school and high school teachers low-cost, meaningful modules -- what you could call "experiments in a trunk." With ingredients as simple as broccoli, shampoo and rubbing alcohol, teachers can work with students to wind DNA out on a rod. Framed in the context of a CSI forensics case, these labs appeal to students and convey important concepts. Because these experiences let teachers "get their hands wet," they build confidence in a way that otherwise would be difficult to achieve.

Student mentorship need not be limited to teachers, but can include church members, college students, foundation partners and corporate sponsors. Carnegie Mellon, the University of Pittsburgh and other area institutions continue to institute creative programs that work with these mentors and the children they guide to become scientists.

Developing meaningful pre-college laboratory experiences for students and integrating them with course content is not easy to accomplish. It takes leadership, partnership and ingenuity. But it's something we simply must do.