Microbes

Bacteria Versus Viruses

Look at the diagram above.  Notice that the bacterium (far left) is larger than the giant viruses (next two diagrams) and way larger than an average sized viurs (the rest.)

Class activity - "kissing lab"

We have to skip this until we're back in school.

Skill 1: What are the similarities and differences between bacteria and viruses?

Bacteria:

 - are living (all 8 characteristics of life)

 - can be killed by antibiotics (use word decoding to figure out what antibiotics do)

 - simple, single-celled organisms (prokaryotes)

- some types of bacteria can make you sick, but most are helpful

Viruses:

 - ARE NOT living (only 3 characteristics of life), so they are NOT organisms, or living things

 - cannot be killed by antibiotics, since they are not alive

 - simple (just a piece of DNA or RNA protected by a protein coat called a capsid)

- all viruses can make an organism sick, but not all affect humans

Use word decoding to see what you can figure out about the following phrases:

Which term matches with each picture above?  *Hint: There is more oxygen near the surface of the test tube than at the bottom.   

Come up with an hypothesis to explain why the bacteria in the third test tube are not evenly distributed.