Bioprospecting for cellulose-degrading microbes: Individual Isolate Method

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This is a long-term inquiry activity in which students investigate locations they believe harbor cellulose-digesting microbes, collect samples, isolate them on selective media, and screen them for cellulase activity. These novel microbes may be useful for the production of cellulosic ethanol. In the process they learn about plating techniques, serial dilutions, symbiotic relationships and enzyme specificity. Two methods are provided, one focusing on isolation of pure microbial strains, the other

HS-LS2-7 Design, evaluate, and refine a solution for reducing the impacts of human activities on the environment and biodiversity.

HS-ETS1-2 Design a solution to a complex real-world problem by breaking it down into smaller, more manageable problems that can be solved through engineering.

Analyze data using tools, technologies, and/or models (e.g., computational, mathematical) in order to make valid and reliable scientific claims or determine an optimal design solution.

Consider limitations of data analysis (e.g., measurement error, sample selection) when analyzing and interpreting data.

Analyze data to identify design features or characteristics of the components of a proposed process or system to optimize it relative to criteria for success.

Plan an investigation or test a design individually and collaboratively to produce data to serve as the basis for evidence as part of building and revising models, supporting explanations for phenomena, or testing solutions to problems. Consider possible variables or effects and evaluate the confounding investigation’s design to ensure variables are controlled.

Make directional hypotheses that specify what happens to a dependent variable when an independent variable is manipulated.

Manipulate variables and collect data about a complex model of a proposed process or system to identify failure points or improve performance relative to criteria for success or other variables.

Criteria and constraints also include satisfying any requirements set by society, such as taking issues of risk mitigation into account, and they should be quantified to the extent possible and stated in such a way that one can tell if a given design meets them.

The main way that solar energy is captured and stored on Earth is through the complex chemical process known as photosynthesis.

When evaluating solutions it is important to take into account a range of constraints including cost, safety, reliability and aesthetics and to consider social, cultural and environmental impacts.

Plants or algae form the lowest level of the food web. At each link upward in a food web, only a small fraction of the matter consumed at the lower level is transferred upward, to produce growth and release energy in cellular respiration at the higher level. Given this inefficiency, there are generally fewer organisms at higher levels of a food web. Some matter reacts to release energy for life functions, some matter is stored in newly made structures, and much is discarded. The chemical elements that make up the molecules of organisms pass through food webs and into and out of the atmosphere and soil, and they are combined and recombined in different ways. At each link in an ecosystem, matter and energy are conserved.

Photoelectric materials emit electrons when they absorb light of a high-enough frequency.

Changes of energy and matter in a system can be described in terms of energy and matter flows into, out of, and within that system.

Systems can be designed to cause a desired effect.

Cause and effect relationships can be suggested and predicted for complex natural and human designed systems by examining what is known about smaller scale mechanisms within the system.

Energy drives the cycling of matter within and between systems.

Patterns of performance of designed systems can be analyzed and interpreted to reengineer and improve the system.

Mathematical representations are needed to identify some patterns.

Bioprospecting for cellulose-degrading microbes: Individual Isolate Method

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