Teaching with Lab Miniatures

Linda Guthertz is the creator of a most amazing set of laboratory miniatures that she uses to teach her microbiology students at the California Department of Public Health. By displaying her models of the great microbiologists of the past, she makes history come alive in a very unforgettable way. The scientists, such as Louis Pasteur, Robert Koch, and Antonie van Leeuwenhoek, are depicted in model figurines that are no more than five inches high. Guthertz enlisted the help of a professional glass blower to create custom miniature flasks, test tubes, and Petri dishes. Due to Linda’s painstakingly beautiful creations in miniature, her students have been inspired and motivated to learn more about the important discoveries of the past You can learn more about Linda’s work from an article that she published in the ASM’s Journal of Microbiology and Biology Education, Volume 18, in April of 2017.

Jay Hardy and Linda Guthertz displaying her famous lab miniatures at the 2019 National ASM Convention in San Francisco

Leeuwenhoek using his primitive, yet innovative microscope in which he observed tiny “animicules”

Selman Waksman and Albert Shatz discovering the antibiotic streptomycin from soil microorganisms

Another view of Waksman and Shatz; models were designed from the actual black and white photo.

Luis Pasteur examining his swan-neck flask for microbial growth in which he disproved spontaneous generation

Robert Koch’s lab in which he developed the famous “Koch’s Postulates” using laboratory animals, and developed the beginnings of photomicrography

Alexander Fleming making his discovery of bacteria being inhibited by penicillin from a fungus in 1928

The laboratory of Rosalind Franklin showing X-ray crystallography equipment; shows a discussion on the shape of the DNA molecule with Watson, Crick, Gosling, and Wilkins

Miniature microbiology laboratory equipment no more than an inch in height

Tiny and meticulously created media tubes on carts only several inches high