Lesson 8: microbes as ancestors
learning outcomes
By the end of this lesson, students should be able to:
Describe microanimism as a way to connect to ancestral lands when we are far away
Discuss the pitfalls of assigning the smalls responsibility for cleaning up our human messes
Discuss inherited microbes
Discuss microbes and the imprint of our ancestors’ experience
Understand the enormity of microbial generations
Discuss what it means to think like a plague
additional resources
Additional resources are posted here for your general interest - the following aren’t integral to the learning but may be supportive. They include music, articles, interviews, writing, and primary scientific literature which you may (or may not) find interesting.
recommended listening
Bear with me here - for some reason this ultra-slow variation of ‘Don’t Fear the Reaper’ (the BOC version) quite often puts me in the correct headspace for thinking about and speaking to the ineffables. YMMV. There’s a particularly epic shift in tone about twenty minutes in.
recommended reading
The disturbing walrus scene in ‘Our Planet’ - Ed Yong, The Atlantic
Mystery Factor Gives Ganges a Clean Reputation
What makes viruses like COVID-19 such a risk for humans? The answer goes back thousands of years
Like Genes, Our Microbes Pass from Parent to Child
Encoding Membrane-Potential-Based Memory Within a Microbial Community