Today I Will Do Francisco Redi’s 1668 Experiment on Spontaneous Generation with My Third Graders
Francisco Redi 1626-1698
I read about Redi’s experiment to disprove the idea of Spontaneous Generation (abiogenisis, the idea that life can arise from non-living matter) in my daughter’s high school biology text book. I thought, “I could do that with my third graders, and they would really learn something!”
Since the time of Aristotle, who originated the idea, many people have believed that living things arose naturally from non-living matter. People thought rotting meat produced flies, that logs at the bottom of a body of water produced crocodiles, and that old mouldy grain produced mice, to name only a few of these ideas.
So today we will recreate Redi’s experiment, for which I was able to piece together a lab procedure from internet articles. What I can’t understand is why I didn’t find any lab procedures for students to follow, already prepared. I am surprised that more students are not doing this experiment. It’s easy and interesting.
Redi's Experimental Jars
We will have nine plastic boxes. Each group of three will have a sample of meat, fish, and chicken (provided today by classroom parents). One group of three samples will be set out in the open, exposed to flies. The next group of three samples will be covered in gauze. The last group of three will be kept tightly closed.
What should happen is that lots of maggots will come out in the open sample. In the gauze-covered sample, a few maggots may pop out due to eggs or hatched maggots falling through the gauze. In the closed sample, no maggots should hatch out. (If you do this experiment, wash carefully and keep boxes in different locations to reduce risk of cross-contamination with students handling them.)
Are any other teachers out there actually doing this experiment? If not, why not? Who has any thoughts on this?
Eileen
Tags: abiogenisis, Aristotle, Spontaneous generation
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September 20, 2008 at 4:41 am
We had this experiment in our theory books (I guess it was in eight grade, but I am not sure) but we never did any experiment ourselves
October 6, 2008 at 3:28 pm
It could be that having multiple rotting pieces of meat is not exactly the way people want their rooms to smell.
We kept our experiment outside during the day, and in tightly-sealed plastic containers at night. But even so, when we came in each morning, the room had a really disgusting smell. Fortuantely, we have six big windows and could air it out quickly before the students arrived! But I’m sure you are right!
–Eileen