Microbial Ecology:

Opportunities for
Inquiry-Based Learning

Mary Mulcahy & Hank Edenborn

Links to Materials for Workshop

Overview

Microbial ecology studies provide excellent opportunities for open-ended, inquiry-based learning in the classroom. In this workshop, we will demonstrate a laboratory exercise in which students generate hypotheses about microbial ecology and then test them using "EcoPlates," multiwell test plates that allow rapid determination of the metabolic capabilities of a bacterial population without tedious and time-consuming reagent preparation by the instructor. After inoculation with a suspension of bacteria washed from a soil or plant sample, the incubated plate returns a unique set of positive (purple) and negative (clear) reactions that allows students to assess whether or not two samples contain similar or dissimilar bacterial populations. Our experience is that students enjoy developing their own experiments using these plates, and that the exercise is particularly useful in illustrating physiological diversity of microbial populations while also involving students in the exciting process of developing their own scientific hypotheses.