1. Are microorganisms alive?

2. What do you think microorganisms might need to live?

3. Investigation Questions we are going to answer today:
Do microorganisms need food?
Do microorganisms need warmth?
Do microorganisms need oxygen?

4. Investigation Each group is going to set up 4 investigations.
What is each bottle investigating?
Bottle 1
200ml warm yeast
4 sugar cubes
1 balloon
(water boiled first)
3cm oil
200ml cold yeast
Bottle 2
Bottle 3
Bottle 4

5. Investigation Number each person in your group 1, 2, 3 or 4.
You are each responsible for setting up your own bottle.
Extra responsibilities:
Organise practical equipment and collect any extra equipment needed (e.g. glue)
Make sure 1, 3 and 4 add the sugar cubes at the same time
Make sure that everyone has a title, diagram and results table in their jotter
Make sure everyone has completed the questions in sentences

6. While you are waiting….
Write the title What do microorganisms need? in your jotter
Stick the picture of the bottles in your jotter and fill in the boxes
Stick the results table in your jotter
Answer the questions in your jotter in sentences

7. Our results

8. Conclusion
In conclusion the results show that microorganisms need food, oxygen and warmth to grow quickly.

9. How could we speed up the growth of microorganisms
How could we speed up the growth of microorganisms? How could we get the balloon to inflate faster? What’s your hypothesis?