Project Based Learning: Microbes – Virus

The first thing I wanted to do was revise what makes something living alive.  The reason for this is that Viruses aren’t generally accepted as being a living thing, but instead of simply teaching that to the children I wanted them to work it out for themselves.

Characteristics of living organisms

– movement as an action by an organism or part of an organism causing a change of position or place

– respiration as the chemical reactions in cells that break down nutrient molecules and release energy for metabolism

– sensitivity as the ability to detect or sense stimuli in the internal or external environment and to make appropriate responses

– growth as a permanent increase in size and dry mass by an increase in cell number or cell size or both

– excretion as removal from organisms of the waste products of metabolism (chemical reactions in cells including respiration), toxic materials, and substances in excess of requirements

– nutrition as taking in of materials for energy, growth and development; plants require light, carbon dioxide, water and ions; animals need organic compounds and ions and usually need water

(This is copied verbatim from an IGCSE syllabus)

Of course, in order to answer the question as to whether a virus is living or not, the children would need to learn a bit more about viruses.  They used my computer to find out some facts.

Structure of Viruses

They studied these diagrams of a bacteriophage and retrovirus from BBC’s Bite size GCSE:

As I had done with both bacteria and fungi, I asked them to make their own model of either a virus or a bacteriophage.  However, this time I limited them to making it out of Lego, Magnetix or Knex.  Each child chose to make a retro virus rather than a bacteriophage.  Here are their models:

Replication of Viruses

We then looked at the replication of a virus.  BBC bitesize have some very clear diagrams, which I went through with the children, and then we all watched this video:

I wanted them to really understand how cells replicate because it is this replication which causes disease in our bodies.  To really drum it home, I had them watch the following video on a cold virus entering the body:

I then asked them to build a cell, in which a virus attacks and then replicates, using their model of the virus made previously.  Here they are demonstrating the replication of viruses.  All three of them used a hoop as their cell being attacked (it’s not always clear from the photos):

Here is the Lysis cycle as explained by C11:

 

And here is L11’s:

I thought both girls did a fabulous job and their explanations were very clear.   T12 had the Lego option and he spent the whole afternoon making a 3 dimensional model.  I somehow missed getting a photo of the actual host cell, but did get a couple of the working machine he made to represent the nucleoid.  It was really cleverly done using Lego Technic gears, with a conveyor belt transforming one RNA strand into two.  My photos don’t do it justice at all:

Following this brief study of viruses I will be doing two more in-depth studies with them.  The first is to look into the flu pandemic of 1918 and the second is to read a ‘living’ book on the 1983 outbreak of Ebola virus in Washington DC, called The Hot Zone.