Most of you have probably heard about Bacteria, but do you know about Archaea (our closest microbial relatives) or Protists (the most diverse life-forms on Earth)? We'll start with an overview of the three domains of life and the role they play in Earth's ecosystem and modern society. The focus will be on disease, your body's microbiome, and food production using bacteria, but some ecology will be covered as well! Did you know that you have 10x more bacterial cells inside of you than you have human cells? Then, we'll use some cool cardboard microscopes to see some protists up close!

Bacteria are like aliens you can ask all sorts of questions that they may have the weirdest answers to. How do they talk, what do they eat, what do they breathe, how do they fight, how do they form communities, and what can they do for humans? Bacteria have strange answers, they talk with a chemical language, they breathe uranium, they form incredibly complex societies, they make chemicals that give us a smile, they can even survive the harsh environment of outer space. We’ll go through a survey of fascinating behaviors and we’ll even have some of those bacterial societies for you guys to look at!