This week, we worked in groups to read and share some articles that dealt with bacterial and viral diseases. The articles covered food poisoning, SARS, West Nile virus, and the avian flu. Students were introduced to the causes of these diseases, how each is transmitted, and the outbreaks of each over the past several years. We reviewed for our bacteria and virus quest on Tuesday and took the quest on Wednesday.
On Thursday, students were introduced to the weird (and creepy) organisms that live in a drop of pond water. I took some local samples of pond water and had students identify the different creatures they found living in it. We found lots of protists (protozoa and algae), and some students even found worms and arthropods. Feel free to bring in your own pond water for investigation!
On Friday, students were asked to design an experiment to determine where bacteria lurks in our school. They had to construct a question to investigate, make a hypothesis, and then swab their cultures into a Petri dish. Students took swabs of everything from locker room showers to Mr. Little's head! Our dishes will incubate over the weekend, and we will check them out on Monday! Who knows what we will find!
Next week, we will study some very interesting protists and see them "in action!"
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