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14 program profilesexciting k-12 teachers and studentsLiving in the Microbial World WorkshopIf Rebecca Finch had been asked last fall to write an essay aboutwhat she did on her summer vacation, it would have beeninteresting reading indeed. One of 19 middle and high schoolteachers participating in the MBL’s Living in the Microbial Worldworkshop, the otherwise mild-mannered Finch slogged throughsalt marshes collecting microbial mats, investigated slime molds,grew fungi in sawdust and grain cultures, and learned how tocatch and study all manner of microorganisms, sometimes rightbefore dinner. She even cultivated antibiotic-resistant bacteriainside a seemingly innocuous bag of supermarket lettuce.Rebecca Finch, SenecaValley Senior High School,Harmony, Pennsylvania;Living in the Microbial WorldParticipant“Microbes are the most abundant, and among the most diverseorganisms of life on the planet,” says workshop foundingdirector, Lorraine Olendzenski. “They shape the atmosphere onwhich we depend, they have dominated the history of life onearth, they’ve contributed to major discovery and understandingin the life sciences. Yet they are not mentioned in the NationalScience Education Standards,” she says. “Those of us who knewabout their importance thought that should change.”Olendzenski, an assistant professor of biology at St. LawrenceUniversity, says the idea for effecting that change through aworkshop for K-12 teachers came to her after she participatedas a student in the MBL’s graduate-level Microbial Diversitycourse in 1992. Living in the Microbial World launched threeyears later and was enthusiastically supported by the WaksmanFoundation for Microbiology, an organization dedicatedto raising public awareness of science and promoting theimportance of microbes in everyday life.Now going on its eleventh year, and with additional supportfrom the Pfizer Foundation and the NASA Astrobiology Institute,the week-long workshop offers a stimulating blend of lecturesby prominent microbiologists and inexpensive, inquiry-basedexperiments teachers can use in their classrooms to deliverpowerful educational messages.