Microscopic Organisms

Grade Levels: 3 - 5

Overview

Students use an online resource to view highly magnified creatures and learn about how they live on objects and people. Then they write an advertisement focused on exterminating one of these creatures.

Objective

Students will practice writing for a particular audience and purpose.

Procedure

1. Tell students they are going to use the World Wide Web to learn about the microscopic things that "share" our homes and bodies. Review what they have learned about fiber optics, X rays, scanning electron microscopes, and other tools for enlarging and viewing creatures and places that are difficult to see with the naked eye.
   
   
2. Take students online to the Creepy Crawlies website. Have them read, scroll down, and click on "HOUSE." They can then click on items in the photo to identify six places microscopic organisms might live.
   
   
3. Whenever students click on a hot spot, they will see a description and enlarged photograph of a microscopic organism such as dust mites, house borer beetles, silverfish, or book lice. After each description, they can scroll down and click on "Take me back to the room" to repeat the process. Once they have found the six sites, have them scroll down to the bottom of the photo and click on "Click here" for a brief review.
   
   
4. Tell students that they are going to write an ad for a product or device that will get rid of, or exterminate, the microscopic organism of their choice. Discuss how advertisements attempt to convince people to purchase a specific product. Review good techniques of persuasion; if possible, look at a few magazine ads together. Remind students to include the details they have learned about their microscopic organism to help convince people to purchase their product or device.
   
   
5. Ask students to share their ads and discuss the inventive extermination devices they created. Discuss whether the ads would convince a consumer to buy that product.
   

Extensions

Return to the Creepy Crawlies website and click on "BODY" for details about creepy crawlies that live in and on our bodies.

Students might enjoy going to the Scanning Electron Microscope website and clicking on "How the SEM Works" for detailed pictorial information on this tool. From this site they can also click on "Image Gallery" for intriguing views of highly magnified plant and animal life.

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