By turning a simple experiment of observing the growth of bacteria, we can enter into art, history, writing, and maybe even some filmmaking. We can study how bacteria are supportive of our very digestions, and may be an invisible hand that orchestrates the world around us, and how our ability to protect our foods from dangerous bacteria has informed what we eat.
Leave a bit of bread and produce in a glass or plastic container with a cover. Observe the decay using images and words. It will be important to either draw or take a picture of the subject each day. This can take two or three weeks.
Introduction:
Bacteria grow close together because they reproduce by duplicating themselves. They are one cell each.
Small life – Microbes:
You can now show pictures of different kinds of bacteria. In a way they’re cute. Draw a few of them… Depending on the age of the student, give them faces, or just define them.
Discuss:
Now.
Has the student seen bacteria like this in the past? How has it changed over time? How do you think it will continue to change? Ask the student to contemplate what bacteria lives on.
- air
- water
- the food you left out
Ask: Does the temperature have anything to do with it? What do you think would happen if we put it somewhere very warm or very cold.
- yes, bacteria can live in… well, it’s resilient, it lives everywhere in the world including Antarctica.
Does this sound familiar? Yes. We need all these things too! But we aren’t strong enough to live in Antartica on our own… we are home to much bacteria. And in a way it is home to us. It helps us digest our food. It helps us stay healthy.
Reflection Activity:
Link: ask the student how they would like to represent their research.
Idea 1: look at still lives from the renaissance and draw or paint their old food.
Idea 2: choose one kind of bacteria to write a short research paper on.
Idea 3: color in their drawings, add three facts about bacteria and make a stop action video
Up Next:
History and the pickle: How different cultures have preserved food
Review different cultures: how have they deprived food of the things we had mentioned earlier? Air, water, temperature, how do we make it inhospitable to microbes but still edible?
Attempt preservation of some type of food depending on your strengths: pickle, smoke, freeze, dehydrate, or smoke. Try an old recipe, or something of the student’s own design.
Bending Tree Education 