There are many microbes out in the world that many scientists have not tested or discovered which is why studying microbial diversity would be beneficial to many scientists and can also help the public. Microbial diversity encompasses a wide range of microorganisms such as fungi, bacteria, protists, archaea, and unicellular organisms (ByJu’s). In our class, we base our studies around a project called Tiny Earth to discover some of these microbes, specifically bacteria, within a soil environment. Tiny Earth’s mission main mission is to discover new antibiotic resistance bacteria that will help combat our antibiotic crisis that we are going towards (Hernandez et al, 2022). We test microbes within the soil because scientists have found many of our antibiotic resistant bacteria within the soil. By sampling soil and finding bacteria that may have antibiotic characteristics, we can be one step closer to discovering a new antibiotic that can ultimately help cure a patient.
For my project, I decided to do an original art piece. I would describe my project as a diorama. I wanted my project to look like a small cut out of the Earth’s crust by placing it in a handy clear cookie container. I then wanted to depict the different microbes by using various materials such as pom pom balls of various sizes, colors, and textures for the coccus bacteria, and pipe cleaners to depict the variety of bacillus bacteria. I then used bigger one-inch dark brown pom pom balls to depict the soil and how much bigger the soil is from the variety of microbes present. For the structure of each of the microbes, I wanted to do a mixture of mostly all the possibilities of coccus and bacillus bacteria so that I can really show that there are many different types of bacteria just based on the shape. I used very tiny pom pom-colored balls to show that there are many microbes that may be smaller in size. As another microbe that I wanted to add, I added spirochetes of various colors to depict that there are more than just coccus and bacillus within the soil. For the lid, I wanted to make sure that it still looked a bit life like, so I added some fake moss as grass and a fake plant as a tree. The tree was suppose to represent where my group had gathered our sample, which was right by a tree. I selected this medium because I knew I wanted to do an art project but was stuck on what type of art form. I wanted it to look simple so that the public would be able to understand what my project represents just by looking at it. I did add a key to let people know what each microbe represents, and the different microbes present within my representation of the Earth crust “cut out.”