http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/10/30/high-school-beer-brewing-class-draws-controversy/
Lets have our own survey.
Should high school biology students learn how to make beer?
I say No! I don’t need the competition
That’s a tough one. I can see the scientific learning value, but at that age I would have been brewing beer in abandoned barns near home and then drinking it.
At that age I learned a lot of things not officially taught at school.
There is more than one type of alcohol. Why don’t they make methanol instead. If I remember right it is roughly the same process. Just the end result is not drinkable.
If kids are going to make alcohol to drink, there are tons of online examples for them to follow. I don’t think a class is going to make any difference.
Ding ding ding! We have a winner!
It also seems like an opportunity to educate on the effects and such. I don’t think it should be taught in a way that the school is complicit in a crime. IE minor in possession
If they’re teaching fermentation, why don’t they just bake bread instead? I will teach my son how to brew beer myself, thank you very much. And it will likely have more hops in a 3 gallon batch than Coors uses in a full batch 
But seriously, let parents teach their own kids about alcohol.
I always felt this same way about sex education. That should strictly be the responsibility of the parents.
I think this is ridiculous just based on how ignorant the mother sounds. You really think that visiting Coors will show you everything to make beer (especially a 16 year old with no prior knowledge of the subject)? Really? That’s like saying that if I visit a textile mill I will start making my own clothes. There are clearly other steps here outside of the initial visit.
I saw the story on Fox and it looked to me like the kids were given homework to brew a batch at home. Though all they showed was about an 8 quart pot on the stove. I didn’t see a conical or stir plate or slants or Bru’n Water running on a laptop, so it couldn’t be very good beer.
In my high school general science class we had a section on wine making (Rural, Catholic high school, what can I say). We discussed the processes and the reactions and even were allowed to taste the results.
Here’s my take on what we learned. If wine is made out of Welch’s grape juice and fermented in warm cabinet is what wine tastes like we would stick the beer we were already consuming in large quantities on the weekend. Sometimes the best way to keep kids away from something is to make them taste a really awful example of it.
Issues like this are best taught by parents. An awfully large swath of American parents should not be allowed to teach their kids anything. Sadly, I have no idea how to fix that but a (hopefully) respected authority figure introducing the brewing process is probably a better example of restraint than most kids will get at home. Removing the mystery removes the appeal.
Paul
I think the drinking age should be 16 and the driving age 21!
The problem with this statement is that quite a lot of parents fail at teaching their kids about the responisbilities required about alcohol and quite a few other things as it is. At least education at an early age should allow some sort of appreciation on the matter. Most parents dont even acknowledge alcohol until 18+ as something that needs to be taught, where most kids are exposed to it as early at 10-12.
In Germany the kids could drink beer at the bar at 16, and take drivers training at 18. Worked for them.
I have to reluctantly agree with you here. I’ve spent way too many years working with the public, and it’s pretty clear to me that there are a whole lot of lousy parents out there. I guess my concern as a parent is just that I don’t want my kid’s schools teaching him values that contradict my own. As long as they keep it to facts and science, and don’t give bad information then I’m OK with it.
My sister in law attended a private Christian high school and the teacher brewed beer in class as part of some biology lesson. I was surprised that didn’t cause an outrage among parents. However, I don’t think the kids were given homework to make beer at home.
I’m not a fan of one size fits all stuff. Some parents suck so all kids must… Applying that to the work place, some employees suck so everyone gets less pay. Its more difficult but good kids of good parents must be rewarded or else there’s no incentive to be good and no cost to being bad.
“In no way does this assignment promote the use of alcohol, but rather a deeper understanding of anaerobic respiration.” Well said. My 15 year old son must have recently had a similar class and was asking me about yeast fermentation based on my brewing experience. I think one of the interesting biology lessons here regards brewer’s yeast’s ability to take advantage of both aerobic and anaerobic environments - the first for cell reproduction (thus we aerate our wort to insure a robust yeast population), the second for the metabolism of carbohydrates. This is good science, and should prompt kids to ask questions about the yeast’s preferred “natural” (pre-beer/bread) environment. That path should lead to interesting discussions. So, yes, I would certainly support a bio class tour of a local brewery.
I was at a pro-am competition last weekend and a local high school math teacher asked if I could/would be willing to speak to his class about practical application of mathematics to brewing processes. I’m certainly no math wiz but it would be fun.
ps- our cranberry kolsch tied for second place peoples choice!