Exploration Phase:

Place students in groups of 3 or 4. Give each student pictures /or actual samples of four microbes. Have them list all of the characteristics that they can discern. (About 5-7 minutes with each picture. Have students keep switching until they have looked at all pictures. Students should make a concept map about the four microbes when they finish. This makes a great preasessment.

"What am I?"

Discuss concept maps, brainstorm with a KWL. Vocabulary is introduced, begin to lead in direction of size, structure, location, function….then how do they cause disease, how spread, how "cured"?

1. Clap an eraser in the air and shine a light through it. Discuss size of chalk dust and relate it to the size of organisms. Ten minutes
2. Look at protists in pond water or preserved slides, bacteria and fungus (penicillin grows great on an orange or lemon). Have students draw what they see and then identify parts.

Phenophthalien/Baking Soda

Make a small cup of water for each student. Place the baking soda mixture in one or two cups and only water in the rest. The baking soda mix is your "disease". Have the students trade water with at least two other students, writing down who they trade with. They do this by pouring half of theirs into someone else’s cup and then evening them out again.. When all are through, place a drop of phenothaphlien in each cup and look for those that turn pink. The infected cups will be the ones that turn pink. Then discuss where the disease originated and how easily is spread.

Obtain copies of Project Wet Activities—No Bellyachers, Poison Pump and Super Sleuths

Assign students one of the microbe group. They are then to pick a specific disease causing organism and do a 400-500 page research paper and visual aid.