In this inquiry activity, community-level physiological profiling (CLPP) with EcoPlates is described to quantitatively depict the community of microorganisms situated in a natural environment. Students can develop their own hypotheses and carry out experimentation about the makeup of microbial communities using EcoPlates. There are many independent variables that can be assessed or changed to determine how environmental differences can play important roles in the types of microorganisms that are found in an environment.

Students need practice in proposing hypotheses, developing experiments that will test these hypotheses, and generating data that they will analyze to support or refute them. I describe a guided-inquiry activity based on the “tongue map” concept, appropriate for middle school and high school students.