Tuesday, March 24, 2026

Giant Microbes

The Science Club topic for this entire school year is Human Anatomy and Physiology. This is such a rich subject! Here is what we have done so far:

    week of

    Sep 8 - The Twelve Senses
    Sep 15 - The Twelve Senses, cont.
    Sep 22 - The Twelve Senses, cont.
    Sep 29 - The Brain

    Oct 6 - The Nervous System
    Oct 13 - The Nervous System, cont.
    Oct 20 - The Circulatory System
    Oct 27 - The Circulatory System, cont.

    Nov 3 - The Lymphatic System (special guest)
    Nov 10 - The Skeletal System
    Nov 17 - Assembling a Skeleton (special guest)

    Dec 1 - The Skeletal System, cont.
    Dec 8 - The Muscular System
    Dec 15 - The Muscular System, cont.

    Jan 5 - The Digestive System
    Jan 12 - The Excretory System
    Jan 19 - Food Guide Pyramid / The Teeth

    Feb 2 - Forensic Anthropologist (special guest)
    Feb 9 - The Respiratory System
    Feb 16 - Childhood Polio Survivor (special guest)

    Mar 9 - review The Digestive System & The Respiratory System
    Mar 16 - The Immune System
    Mar 23 - The Immune System, cont.



Next week we will be wrapping up the Immune System with one more set of activities. Then it's on to the Integumentary System and the Endocrine System! We will have more special guests this year... including a student from the Mortuary Science department at SIU... and even a field trip to John A Logan College to see their SYNDAVER aka "THE SYNTHETIC CADAVER"!


To kick off our study of the Immune System we began with rabies:


Today we learned about plagues like cholera, typhoid, smallpox, and the Black Death.


Then they got to make WANTED posters for different plague-causing microbes from my set of Plagues from History.


I absolutely love the Giant Microbes! In addition to that set (which includes Smallpox, Black Death, Cholera, Typhoid Fever, and Spanish Flu), I also have



Tuberculosis



Salmonella



Penicillin



Chicken Pox


Did You Know?

Illinois has a state microbe. It is Penicillium rubens, which was found quietly growing on a cantaloupe -- in a grocery store in Peoria -- in 1944!

from the IDNR website on Illinois state symbols:

    On May 31, 2021, the Illinois General Assembly approved Penicillium rubens as the official State Microbe. The designation serves to honor Peoria and the National Center for Agricultural Utilization Research, whose scientists with the help of local residents in the 1940s discovered a method of mass-producing penicillin. Penicillin is the most widely used antibiotic in the world. The methods were developed in time to provide penicillin to treat Allied soldiers wounded during the invasion of Normandy, France, which began June 6, 1944, and helped to revise pharmaceutical drug production.

    The mold strain was found on a cantaloupe at a local store, not far from the laboratory in Peoria. The scientists discovered that when grown in vats with special nutrients, this Penicillium mold strain produced more penicillin than the Penicillium strain originally discovered by Alexander Fleming in 1928.


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