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Backyard Bacteria (February 20, 2004, Two)

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Program Summary

You don’t have to go to Mars to look for exotic new life forms—just go outside and play in the dirt. You’re guaranteed to find millions, if not billions, of strange, microscopic, one-celled creatures in one bucketful of garden soil. You’ve just entered—the bacteria zone!

Bacteria are possibly the least understood life on Earth. They exist absolutely everywhere—in the earth, in the sky, on our skin, in our guts, in geothermal vents, and in layers of arctic ice. They’re hardy little critters that can adapt to almost any environment and mutate so rapidly that scientists can’t keep track of them. Billions of types of bacteria exist, and the number just keeps growing. Yet we may never know anything about most of them because, for unknown reasons, the vast majority can’t be cultured in a laboratory. So how do we know they’re there? Bacteriologists identify and classify them by their genetic signatures.

Life as we know it would not be possible without bacteria. True, some of them are responsible for deadly diseases (tuberculosis, meningitis, anthrax, “flesh-eating” disease, pneumonia, food poisoning), but they also decompose garbage, digest food, and make oxygen. Bacteria can break down environmental toxins, create life-saving drugs, make cheese, manufacture vitamins, even eat other bacteria. Knowledge of the structures and behaviors of bacteria will also help scientists create new antibiotics to use against bugs that have become resistant to drugs such as penicillin, which has long been the first line of defense in fighting infection.

Guests

Betsey Dexter Dyer, author of “A Field Guide to Bacteria” and Bojan Jennings professor of biology at Wheaton College in Norton, Massachusetts

Jo Handelsman, Howard Hughes Medical Institute professor in the department of plant pathology at the University of Wisconsin in Madison

Related Links and Resources

The Microbe Zoo
American Society for Microbiology’s Stalking the Mysterious Microbe!
Science Friday Kids’ Connection, December 12, 2003: Bacteria—Mighty Microbes
Science Friday Kids’ Connection, January 30, 2004: A Living Antibiotic
the-scientist.com, May 5, 2003: “Microbiology Vigil: Probing What's Out There” (requires free registration)

Books Discussed

“A Field Guide to Bacteria“ by Betsey Dexter Dyer. Cornell University Press, 2003.

For Discussion:

• What are bacteria?
• What obstacle do bacteriologists face in researching new bacteria? (Most bacteria can’t be cultured in the lab) Why are bacteria so hard to cultivate?
• Will we ever know exactly how many bacteria types there are? Why not?
• What are some harmful bacteria and what do they do?
• What are some beneficial bacteria?
• How have scientists used genetic engineering in microbiology?

Activities

Buddies and baddies. Intimate Strangers: Unseen Life on Earth, a companion site for a PBS broadcast, introduces the world of microbes good and bad. Topics include the evolution of microbes, their role in disease, potential for cleaning up pollution, and how genetic engineering has changed microbiology. Students play the “Game of Life,” in which they must maintain a balance of cells. Classroom activities reflect issues presented in each episode.

It’s a zoo out there! The creatures are safely behind bars at The Microbe Zoo, a fun, colorful look at microbial life in different environments, including our skin, food, and “poo.” CELLS alive! is a veritable cell circus, with dozens of videos, animations, downloads, photographs, and cell cams of just about every microbe in existence. Quizzes reinforce the material presented.

Bugs aren’t all bad. You mean there’s something that likes to eat pollution? Read about bacteria, both natural and engineered, that actually break down toxic substances and feed on them. Visit Bugs for Toxic Clean-up and Sticky Bugs (Nature.com) and Glowing Bugs Help Detect Pollution (CNN.com).

Size doesn’t matter— or does it? Lesson plans from the New York Times Learning Network show us that microbes are small, but tenacious. Survival of the Fittest Microbes examines life forms that have adapted to environments that kill everything else. All Creatures Microscopically Small looks at the nanobe, claimed by some researchers to be the smallest microbe alive, and asks if size affects a microbe’s behavior. Petri-fied of Bacteria makes students face the fact that bacteria are all around us. They grow their own from soil samples they collect from various locations.

Who (or what) dunnit? Students help Sam Sleuth solve microbe mysteries at Stalking the Mysterious Microbe (Microbe.org). In the Record Holders section, learn about the biggest, smallest, oldest, and deadliest.

Anti up! Learn why so many germs are becoming resistant to widely used drugs and what can be done about it at Microbes: What Doesn't Kill Them Makes Them Stronger (Whyfiles.org.).

Ad infinitum. Microbial Population Explosion (Whyfiles.org) discusses the amazing diversity and proliferation of bacteria.

Use the search box below to perform a Google search within any of the specifc sites or general domains mentioned in this Activities section.

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