In Living Color: Bacterial Pigments as an Untapped Resource in the Classroom and Beyond: e1000510

Painting with living bacteria (Box 2) or extracting pigments from bacterial cultures (Box 3) provides a visual and kinesthetic activity to support key aspects of scientific investigations and methods learned in the classroom. Because the methods to do so are safe, inexpensive, and easily implementable in the everyday world, it is possible to use biopigments as a vehicle to introduce school children to science via art and vice versa. Living Art Since Streptomyces spores spread over a limited distance when cultured on semi-solid agar medium, the site of inoculation of a petri-dish will determine the boundaries of bacterial growth [1]. [...]the spores of Streptomyces can be used as paint, and the artist's brush strokes will dictate the final image (for example, see Image 1).