Posts Tagged ‘human diseases’

When you teach eager homeschool biology students (or students in a traditional classroom) about the diversity of life, someone is inevitably going to ask, “What is a virus?” Or, someone might ask, “Are viruses alive?” Any thorough discussion of life processes must address the topic of viruses, but many introductory biology curricula either do not get around to viruses, or do a poor and confusing job of dealing with them.

The new teacher’s guide to the tree of life by Priscilla Spears, PhD, Kingdoms of Life Connected not only answers these basic questions about viruses, but also addresses viral reproduction, diversity, and classification. As with other microorganisms, much of our knowledge of viruses concerns their relationship to human disease, but there is far more to it than that. And, in the hands of a good teacher, the information can be fascinating.

Kingdoms of Life Connected presents a viral model that can help students form a mental picture of a virus, and overcome a common difficulty with visualization of something so small and non-obvious. In addition to discussing the role of viruses in human diseases, the book also addresses the interactions of viruses with all five of the kingdoms of life, and explains why viruses are not included in the Tree of Life. Viruses have their own place on the chart of biology, and both facts we know and mysteries we have not yet solved are raised in an interesting manner sure to stimulate further inquiry
on the part of many students.

How many of your students would find it interesting to learn that viruses do not grow, and that the infecting virion disappears when a cell begins manufacturing the components of new virions? How many students would find it fascinating to learn that viruses are common in water, soil and floating through the air? What about the fact that there are no known fossils of viruses? All these interesting facts and many more are revealed and explained in the fascinating new textbook of biology, Kingdoms of Life Connected.

Author: Rob Lester
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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