Defending the Lowly Prokaryotes: New Challenges forBIOGaiaLearning Activity

Abstract

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Many educators agree that effective teaching helps students to think critically, communicate more clearly, learn self-discipline, develop an understanding of themselves and others, and cultivate the habit of self-education (Cherif, 1994; Joyce & Weil, 1986). Today's global, multi-cultural environment requires people to work in teams, which in turn requires collaboration and practical approaches to conflict resolution. Therefore, teachers must provide their students with structured group learning experiences that promote the development of these skills (Gayford, 1989). In the following learning activity, we accomplish this by having groups of students work together to solve a problem. Students act out conflicts, collect information, learn to take on the roles of others, and improve their social skills and academic performances. Additionally, this activity encourages students to have a desire for the knowledge that will allow them to solve the problem (Cherif & Adams, 1994; Joyce & Weil, 1986). Therefore, they become actively involved in their own learning process. * Scenario You are the founder, the Chief Financial Officer (CFO), and the Chief Engineering Officer (CEO) of BIOGaia, a consulting firm that specializes in developing and implementing plans to protect various life forms on Earth. Your employees are highly trained to meet the needs and to serve members of all life forms including Archaea, Bacteria, and Eukarya. BIOGaia has access to the latest technology and equipment to provide protection, safety, and security to various life forms. In short, you are very good at what you do. Indeed, your success rate is over 95%, which has brought you, your company, and your employees a good reputation and an increasing number of clients each year. A New Client A delegation from the domain Bacteria has just approached you seeking BIOGaia's help in protecting them from other life forms. Your new clients are members of a domain that includes the original and the most basic organisms on the planet that have existed on Earth for four billion years (Koneman, 2002). Indeed, for more than three billion of those years, Bacteria and their cousins Archaea were the only kinds of life on planet Earth. Today, borrowing Bill Bryson's (2003) words, bacteria, which are on and around us in numbers we can't even conceive, inhabit our skin, gut, and nasal passages; cling to our hair and eyelashes; swim over the surface of our eyes; and drill through the enamel of our teeth. ... [Our] digestive system alone is host to more than a hundred trillion microbes of at least four hundred types. Some deal with sugars, some with starches, some attack other bacteria. A surprising number, like the ubiquitous intestinal spirochetes, have no detectable function at all. They just seem to like to be with [us]. Every human body consists of about 10 quadrillion cells, but about 100 quadrillion bacterial cells. They are, in short, a big part of us. From the bacteria's point of view, of course, we are a rather small part of them. (Bryson, 2003, p. 302-303) After all, they have not only preceded the more complex eukaryotes by almost two billion years, they have also outnumbered all the other life forms we have known on the planet (Koneman, 2002; Knoll, 2003). * A New Challenge The natural hosts of bacteria, such as humans, domestic animals, and crops, are no longer dependent on their own natural defense mechanisms when they interact with the members of the domain Bacteria. During the 20th century, humans started using outside help, compounds called antibacterial drugs. For example, in the U.S. alone, more than 35 million pounds of antibiotics are produced every year, and about 70% of all these antibiotics are not even used for the treatment of human diseases (Lawson, 2008). Since this time, bacteria have been under constant attack (Koneman, 2002). …