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Concepts around when life evolved, and how life is formed, can be complex for students to understand. These examples of practical activities can be done with students to demonstrate how long microbes have been in existence, and also show how cells assemble, giving both large-scale and small-scale demonstrations of where life comes from.

Centuries ago, in a time of myths of dragons and gods, seafarers and beach dwellers were baffled by the flashes of light and glowing lights seen in oceans all over the world. Today, we now know this is caused by bioluminescence, a chemical emission of light seen across the tree of life, in fish, invertebrates, annelids, arthropods and, most interestingly for us, micro-organisms.

A school-friendly assay using T4 bacteriophage and its host, Escherichia coli.

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