Sunday 28 October 2012

Microorganisms



Year 5 : The Unseen Life - Microorganisms

All living things are created by God. Humans, animals and plants are living things. They vary in size and can be seen with naked eyes. However, there are tiny living things that can only be seen through a microscope. There are called microorganisms.



Microorganisms are very tiny one-celled organisms.There are different types of microorganisms. Viruses, fungi, protozoa and bacteria are found everywhere in the world. They are found in all living things, plants and animal. There are more microorganisms on and inside your body than there are cells that make up your entire body. Microorganisms can live in the air, on land, and in fresh or salt water environments. Some of them, pathogens, can be harmful and causes diseases, but there are some microorganisms that are needed for living things to survive.

The first microcope













Anton van Leeuwenhoek, 1632-1723, Wine Assayer, Surveyor, Cloth Merchant, Minor Public Official, and Inventor





Leeuwenhoek was a man with many talents, his most important attributes were creativity, power of observation, and ingenuity. Leeuwenhoek was a common man without any fortune or formal education, so he had to work for a living. Leeuwenhoek made simple (one lens) microscopes. He was not the first person to build a microscope, but the microscopes that he did build were the best ones for that time period. Leeuwenhoek was the first person to describe bacteria (from teeth scrapings), protozoans (from pond water), helped to prove the theory of blood circulation. He gained much of his inspiration form reading Hooke'sMicrographia.