edHelper.com Inventors and Inventions

Louis Pasteur

---

Louis Pasteur
Reading Level

	edHelper's suggested reading level:	grades 8 to 9
	Flesch-Kincaid grade level:	8.29

Vocabulary

	challenging words:		rabid, flask, sanitary, anthrax, non-living, microbiology, decisive, broth, discovery, scientific, variable, spontaneous, knowledge, theory, generate, method
	content words:		French Academy, Louis Pasteur

---

Print Louis Pasteur

Print Louis Pasteur  (font options, pick words for additional puzzles, and more)

Quickly Print - PDF format

	Quickly Print: PDF (2 columns per page)
	Quickly Print: PDF (full page)

Quickly Print - HTML format

Quickly Print: HTML

Proofreading Activity

Print a proofreading activity

---

Feedback on Louis Pasteur

Leave your feedback on Louis Pasteur  (use this link if you found an error in the story)

---

Louis Pasteur By Sharon Fabian

---

¹     Everyone learns about the scientific method. In science class, you learn all of the steps. You learn what a variable is, and you learn that it is a good idea to experiment on just one variable at a time. You learn to have a control to compare your results to. It's just an ordinary thing that everyone learns in school now, but it wasn't always that way. Back in the early 1800's, the scientific method was something new. Many people who did experiments had never heard of variables or controls.
 
²     At that time, many people based their ideas on observations like scientists do today, but they didn't go on to use the rest of the scientific method. The result was that people believed some things to be true that seem really strange to us today. A good example is the idea of "spontaneous generation." This was the belief that life forms could occur "spontaneously" from non-living matter. People saw maggots in rotting meat, and they assumed that the maggots just showed up out of nowhere. They saw frogs in the mud after a flood, and assumed that the frogs just popped up from the mud. Beetles, eels, and many tiny bugs were thought to arrive that way. The people of that time even had a name for tiny creatures that arrived spontaneously: "animalcules."
 
³     In 1859, the French Academy of Science had a contest to see if anyone could prove, one way or the other, whether spontaneous generation really happened. Louis Pasteur entered the contest. He designed an experiment using two flasks containing meat broth. One flask had the neck bent into a certain shape so that air could still enter it, but bugs or germs from the air would settle into a bent part of the neck and not go down into the broth. The other flask was left in its normal shape. The result was that germs grew in the normal shaped flask, but not in the one with the special neck. Since germs grew in the one flask but not in the other, he proved that the germs did not spontaneously generate themselves, but arrived from the air outside the flask. Pasteur won the contest. He had proven once and for all that spontaneous generation did not really happen.

Paragraphs 4 to 9:
For the complete story with questions: click here for printable

---

Weekly Reading Books

Create Weekly Reading Books Prepare for an entire week at once!

---

Inventors and Inventions

Inventors and Inventions

---

More Lessons

High School Reading Comprehensions and High School Reading Lessons

---

Social Studies

Social Studies

2004 Elections         2008 Elections         United States History and Theme Units         American Government         Ancient America         Ancient China         Ancient Egypt         Ancient Greece         Ancient India         Ancient Mesopotamia         Ancient Rome         Biographies         Canadian Theme Unit         Country Theme Units         Crime and Terrorism         Economics

European History: 1600s-1800s         Explorers         Famous Educators         Geography         Grades 2-3 Social Studies Wendy's World Series         History of Books and Writing         History of Mathematics         How Can I Help?         Inventors and Inventions         Middle Ages         Renaissance         World Religion         World War I         World War II         World Wonders

---

More Activities, Lesson Plans, and Worksheets

Back to School Graphic Organizers Alphabet Worksheets Sight Words Math Worksheets Mazes 50 States Education Teaching Monthly Themes January February March April May June July August September October November December

Fractions Place Value Time and Calendar Money Earth Day Solar System Analogies Nouns Following Directions Listening Capitalization Cursive Writing Patterns and Sequencing Dinosaurs All About Me Kindergarten First Grade Second Grade Third Grade Fourth Grade Fifth Grade Sixth Grade

Multiplication Division Main Idea Cause and Effect Measurement Decimals Rounding Order of Operations Verbs Community Helpers Adjectives Plants Grammar Addition and Subtraction Contractions Bulletin Board Ideas Word Searches Crossword Puzzles Printable Puzzles Reading Comprehension Reading Skills English Language Arts

Copyright © 2012 edHelper