Where Do “New” Infectious Diseases Come From?

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Where do “new” infectious diseases come from?

What questions do you have after watching the video? Write down your questions and share your questions with someone.

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Common Questions:

Compare your questions to what other students have asked.

Were they similar?

• What causes us to get sick?
• How do you know when you have a bacterial infection or a viral infection?
• What’s the difference between a bacteria and a virus?
• Are there other good ways to not get infections besides washing your hands?
• Which one is living and which one is not?
• How do you treat viral infections if you can’t take antibiotics?
• How do bacteria grow?

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We will choose to explore this one... .

Compare your questions to what other students have asked.

Were they similar?

• What causes us to get sick?
• How do you know when you have a bacterial infection or a viral infection?
• What’s the difference between a bacteria and a virus?
• Are there other good ways to not get infections besides washing your hands?
• Which one is living and which one is not?
• How do you treat viral infections if you can’t take antibiotics?
• How do bacteria grow?

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What is the difference between bacteria and viruses?

Write down some things you know, or think you know, about bacteria and viruses. Make a chart on your paper that looks like the one below.

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In order to understand more, we first need to understand….

Compare your questions to what other students have asked.

Were they similar?

• What causes us to get sick?
• How do you know when you have a bacterial infection or a viral infection?
• What’s the difference between a bacteria and a virus?
• Are there other good ways to not get infections besides washing your hands?
• Which one is living and which one is not?
• How do you treat viral infections if you can’t take antibiotics?
• How do bacteria grow?

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How do bacteria make more of themselves?

Watch the video linked here:

Bacteria Growth

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https://www.ck12.org/biology/population-growth-in-biology/lesson/Growth-of-Populations-Advanced-BIO-ADV/

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What did you figure out? What new questions do you have?

Write down any new information about bacteria and viruses you gathered from the video and discussion. Also add any new questions to your list.

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Additional Questions:

Compare your questions to what other students have asked.

Were they similar?

• Where do cells come from?
• How fast does this happen? How fast do bacteria make more of themselves?
• What causes us to get sick?
• How do bacteria make us sick?
• How do you know when you have a bacterial infection or a viral infection?
• How do antibiotics help?

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We are really interested in these “antibiotics”....

Compare your questions to what other students have asked.

Were they similar?

• Where do cells come from?
• How fast does this happen? How fast do bacteria make more of themselves?
• What causes us to get sick?
• How do bacteria make us sick?
• How do you know when you have a bacterial infection or a viral infection?
• How do antibiotics help?

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So….what about the antibiotics?

Make some predictions about what you think antibiotics do to bacteria..

• What would you expect to see?
• Document your ideas using the Student Activity Sheet also available in Spanish here.

After you have documented your predictions on the Student Activity Sheet, follow the instructions to complete the Bacteria vs. Antibiotic Simulation. (NOTE: It will be important to familiarize yourself with the instructions before running the simulation.)

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CLAIM: Bacteria / Antibiotic Investigation 1

At the start of this activity, you predicted whether releasing antibiotic particles into the simulation would result in the same chance of destroying each of these variations of bacteria. What claim can you now make?

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During Investigation 1, we figured out….

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• there were different kinds of bacteria in the simulation (variation in the population).
• We started with 10 of each kind, but we noticed that we did not end with 10 of each kind.
• Bacteria with less pores survived more than bacteria with more pores.

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We also remember that bacteria reproduce. What would happen if we allowed them to reproduce like we learned in the video about bacterial growth? That leads us to conduct Investigation 2….

Bacteria / Antibiotic Investigation 2

In investigation 2 we will figure out:

How will the combination of both reproduction and antibiotic application affect the bacteria population?

Add your prediction:

Do you think it will take the same number of doses of antibiotic to wipe out all the bacteria each time you run the simulation?

(responses will be made on your Student Activity Guide)

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During Investigation 2, we figured out….

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• Bacteria with fewer pores survive. �
• Bacteria with more pores die out, eventually eliminating their population. �
• Even if we start with fewer bacteria with 3-4 pores, their populations outnumber bacteria with 5 or 6 pores by the end.

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Building Consensus….

Building Consensus:

• Let’s look back at what we did…
• We asked questions that we had about bacteria and viruses.
• We made a chart that documented similarities and differences of bacteria and viruses.
• We conducted an investigation and found out that:
• Bacteria make more of themselves.
• We know that antibiotics work on some, but not all, bacteria.
• Bacteria that survive antibiotic treatment reproduce and make more of themselves.
• “New” infections are the result of changes in bacteria populations that make them different from other ones before them.

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But what about viruses? We know that antibiotics don’t work on them so….

Do they act in the same way?

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Let’s go back to our original questions...

Compare your questions to what other students have asked.

Were they similar?

• What causes us to get sick?
• How do you know when you have a bacterial infection or a viral infection?
• What’s the difference between a bacteria and a virus?
• Are there other good ways to not get infections besides washing your hands?
• Which one is living and which one is not?
• How do you treat viral infections if you can’t take antibiotics?
• How do bacteria grow?

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Treating bacterial and viral infections are different.

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What did we figure out??

• What did we figure out?
• Bacteria are different from viruses. Because of that, they are treated differently when you get sick.
• Most bacteria can be killed by antibiotics.
• Sometimes, bacteria survive because they have changed, or mutated, to survive the antibiotic.
• Bacteria that have mutations to survive antibiotics reproduce and become more common.
• “New” bacterial and viral (we think) infections are mutated versions of ones that came before them.
• Questions we still have are:
• Do viruses reproduce like bacteria do?
• Do viruses mutate like bacteria do?
• Is COVID-19 a mutated version of a previous virus?
• See ENRICHMENT EXTENSION

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