The Dirtiest Spot at Preston Jr.

High School

By: Sample Student Period 6

Bacterial Growth Lab Report:

Step 1 The Question:
What is the dirtiest spot at Preston Jr. High

School out of 6 tested areas for bacteria growth at 37o C ?

Step 2 Research:
Agar a gelatin like product of certain

seaweeds, used for solidifying certain culture media. Culture the growing of microorganisms in a

nutrient medium. Aseptic Technique a set of specific

practices and procedures performed under carefully controlled conditions with the goal of minimizing contamination by pathogens. Inoculate to implant (a disease agent or

antigen) in a person, animal, or plant to produce a

disease for study or to stimulate disease resistance. Colonies a group of the same kind of one-

celled organisms living or growing together. More Research that is comprised from many websites: Bacteria can grow in moist and nutrient areas. In which a nutrient area would be a place best suited for bacteria to grow and thrive, which would include: the Boys bathroom floor, Brass Spit, Longs Gum Bucket, Library Computer keys, and cell phone keys. Proteins are another thing that bacteria need especially as they go through their lag phase of adapting to their environment. In your mouth you would provide everything necessary for millions of bacteria to grow which includes one hundred percent humidity, warmth, and a really good source of food. Bacteria can grow extremely quick when nutrients become available to bacteria. Bacteria can reproduce about every 9.8 minutes with binary fission when

conditions are optimal. And lastly bacteria will increase if given chemicals that bacteria can use to increase asexual reproduction.

Step 3 Hypothesis:
If the bacterial swabs from all of the places at Preston Jr. High are collected and tested against each other then Ms. Longs gum bucket is going to be the dirtiest place at Preston Jr. High school. From my research I believe that the swab of Ms. Longs gum bucket is going to be the dirtiest place out of Preston Jr. High School than any of the other swab locations taken. I came to this conclusion by looking at all of the web sites on the bacteria in your mouth and I came to the conclusion that when you chew on gum in your mouth those bacteria are going to go and start eating that piece of gum, which includes over 500 bacteria. So when you spit out your gum into Ms. Longs gum bucket all of those hundreds of thousands of millions of bacteria that came onto the piece of gum while in your

mouth will go into the bucket along with the piece of gum. So my hypothesis is that the place that is going to be the dirtiest and has the most bacteria is going to be Ms. Longs gum bucket based on my research and ideas.

Step 4 Prediction:
If bacterial growth at 37oC results in more growth in some areas more than others, then the dirtiest spot in Preston will have more colonies of bacteria grown an agar plate than others, because bacteria cause disease and bacteria like warm incubator conditions with nutrient agar.

Step 5 Experiment:
Materials Used:
2 Petri Dishes 8 Q-tips Tape

 Sharpie Marker 7 samples of bacteria 7 areas in which for collecting bacteria Agar

Procedure:
1. As a class we decided which 8 areas of Preston are to be tested. 2. We broke into groups of 4 and gave 2 Petri dishes to each group. 3. Using a permanent marker we divided the bottom of the dish into 4 equal pie pieces. Put initials and period number on the dish. 4. In groups of 4 we placed a Q-tip swipe sample of each area into each of the 8 areas in the 2 Petri dishes. We then marked each area 1 through 8. 5. We then used aseptic technique during and after collecting samples.

6. We then tipped the lid closed with masking tape and completely sealed the dish. Then we taped our initials and period number on the Petri dish. 7. We then waited 48 hours for the swipes to be incubated. Then after 48 hours we read the results by counting the amount of cultures, and colonies and measuring surface area covered as well as how many there were of them. 8. We then took the information in, and put into a table for analysis for the lab report.

Constant Variables:
Petri dishes 2 swipes of the bacteria on each quadrant of

each section on the two Petri dishes except for the control The same amount of Agar The Petri dishes were covered with tape the

same way in which to completely shut the Petri dishes so nothing could get in during incubation.

Experimental Variables:
Number of Colonies in each quadrant of each

Petri dish Size of Colonies in each quadrant of each

Petri dish

6 Data: Experiment Results: In the Control no bacteria grew Bacteria grew in all of the other quadrants, except the Control Measured all Colonies in millimeters

Sample/Source
#1 Boys Bathroom Floor #2 Brass Spit, Band Room #3 Wall Lunch Room Line #4 Long's Gum Bucket #5 Rock Climbing Wall, Rock #6 Library Computer Key #7 Cell Phone #8 Control

Colonies
45 65 10 15 4 13 10 0

Colony Size
small, really small, medium, large medium, small, really small really small large, small, medium, really small large, really small large, really small small, really small, medium, large none

Color
some white, Some yellow orangish, yellowish yellow yellow white white, yellow yellow none

Other Observations
completely covered circular very little bacteria various colored circles grows outward fuzzy shape/color small circles no bacteria growth

There was fungus in the Rock Climbing Wall, and boys bathroom

70
quadrant in the Petri dish containing it

60 45 50

Step 4

Conclusion:

Library Com 13

Rock Climbin

If the bacterial swabs from all of the places at Preston Jr. High are collected and tested against each other then Ms. Longs gum bucket is going to be the dirtiest place at Preston Jr. High school was disproven with this experiment being conducted. Ms. Longs gum bucket grew only 15 colonies during the incubation that occurred for 48 hours before being observed upon. Where as in the brass spit in the band room contained 65 colonies of bacteria, a significant number of bacteria compared to Ms. Longs gum bucket. The evidence that shows this information lies in my graph, pie chart, and by table chart where they all show that Ms. Longs gum bucket only has 15 colonies, and the band room brass spit has 65 colonies. I believe that I was incorrect because I didnt incorporate that the bacteria in the mouth would either latch onto the piece of gum or stay in the mouth not attached to the piece of gum when exiting the mouth into Ms. Longs gum bucket. I should have probably gotten some more evidence before basing a hypothesis on which of the 8 places would be

the dirtiest and contain the most bacteria. So from my experiment I have learned that the dirtiest place at Preston Jr. High School is the brass spit in the band room which came from the mouth of a person playing a brass instrument.

This experiment was fairly well conducted in the case that there were three problems or mistakes that happened and could have or did change the results of the experiment. One of the major mistakes and problem I had while reading the data on the Petri dishes was that the boys bathroom sample and rock climbing wall rocks swabs were either contaminated or had fungus growing with the bacteria. So when reading the data of those two samples to form a conclusion it was hard to determine how many colonies of bacteria there really were in the section of those two samples. Another mistake and falter was that one of the sections on the Petri dish number two was contaminated, which made the results not what they should have been. So in this

case I had to get another incubated sample of that location to get proper results for me to make a conclusion of this experiment. The last mistake in this experiment was that some Petri dishes of the same sample had different numbers of bacteria. Which when comparing from one to one was hard to make a average when some of the very same sample had very little number of colonies, some had a lot of colonies and some were in between a lot and little of colony numbers. So here are the mistakes that this lab and its results had to face to make a conclusion on what the answer to the experiment was.

Some suggestions that I have for the improvement of this experiment could be to be stricter on where each sample of each location is taken. This would require that as a class, the class would need to decide exactly where the sample is taken for example the boys bathroom sample would need to be on an exact spot on

the floor or the exact spot on the toilet. Another suggestion I have for this experiment is to have more than four to five samples of each of the areas chosen for examination for the dirtiness of each location. So here are some of the things that I would suggest for the improvement of this experiment to get better results and to get a more thorough examination of what each area should really have.

Step 5 Bibliography:

Wikipedia.org. Bacteria. Visited: February 24, 2009 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacteria

Kenneth Todar, Ph.D. Growth of Bacteria. Visited: February 24, 2009 http://www.textbookofbacteriology.net/growth.htm l

Imaginova Corp. Bacteria.

Visited: February 24, 2009 http://www.livescience.com/bacteria/