Name_________________________________________________Per_________Date__________________

Scientifically Testing Spontaneous Generation

In the 17
th
century, it was commonly believed that nonliving things could give rise to living things. This
meant that people believed dirt could create frogs, and meat could create flies! Francesco Redi and Louis
Pasteur were two scientists who developed sound scientific experiments to disprove the theory of nonliving
life creating life, which is called spontaneous generation. Your job today is to take a senario from the 1700s
and design an experiment to help prove the theory of biogeneis, that life comes from life.

1)Write a 3 sentence summary of the 1700s scenario your group was given.



2) State 2 reasons as to why the conclusion drawn in the 1700s could not be accurate.



Use the scientific method to design an experiment
1)Ask a question: What is the scientific question your experiment will be asking?



2)Do Background research: What kind of knowledge will your group have to have to design your
experiment? What resources will you have to use to look things up?



3)Construct your hypothesis: Use your knowledge to create a 21
st
century hypothesis.



Test your hypothesis by doing an experiment
1) List the materials you will need


2) How long will your experiment run for?




3) What is the estimated cost of your experiment? (including analysis of experts)




4) What are some ethical concerns of your experiment?




5) What are you aiming to learn from your experiment?

6) Write a detailed step-by-step plan of your experiment



















7) Analyze data: How are you going to convince people that your experiment was accurate? What ways
will you display your data?















8) Final conclusions: Write a few sentences as to how your experiment can help support biogenesis, the
scientific law that life comes from life. Explain how your experiment disproves spontaneous
generation.