Transcript Sir Alexander Fleming and the Scientific Method

 On a farm in Scotland on August 6, 1881, an amazing
person was born – Alexander Fleming.
 As a boy he roamed the countryside with his 8 siblings
who lived with him in a desolate area of Scotland.
 The Fleming children had a love for the flora, fauna
and merry weather that surrounded their farm for
miles.
 "We unconsciously learned a great deal from nature,"
he said at a later time in his life.
 After his father passed away, Alec, who was 14, and 4
siblings moved to London. The eldest brother took
over the Fleming's family farm.
 In 1900 war broke out and 3 of the Fleming boys,
including Alec, went to war in South Africa.
 After the war, Fleming won a scholarship to St. Mary's
Hospital Medical School in London. He went on and
passed exams and completed his medical training at
the Royal College of Surgeons in England. He studied
hard!
 Fleming’s specialty was diseases caused by bacteria.
 In some of his experiments, he discovered that tears
and nasal mucous could kill bacteria.
 Fleming was brilliant, but not so tidy.
 One day, he was busy and didn’t have time to clean up
the lab. He left several petri dishes that were cultured
with Staphlococcus bacteria on the edge of the
counter.
 When he came back to the lab two weeks later, he
made an amazing discovery – green mold was growing
on one of the petri dishes. Even though the entire
petri dish was COVERED with bacteria, there was a
halo around the mold.
What inference did he make
from this evidence?
 Fleming was a great research scientist, so of course he
followed the scientific method to try to repeat these
results.
 What do you think he did?
 What would you do?
 Alexander Fleming’s hypothesis was supported – the
mold killed the bacteria in every trial.
 He later named the substance in the mold “penicillin”
 His discovery was an “accident” but it saved thousands
of lives during World War II
 Fleming was knighted in 1944, and died in 1955
 He was named as one of the Time Magazine most
influential people of the 20th century.
 He was buried with other “nobles” of Great Britan