SODIS Project

[heemo123]

Hi
Im in the 7th grade and doing the sodis project with different PET colored bottles.
I have soy tryptic agar plates and cultured them yesterday. I cultured untreated water, boiled water and water that was under the UVA light for 12 hours. It has been 24 hours and there is absolutely no growth on any plates. Should I be worried? I am incubating the dishes at my home in room temperature.

Thanks for your help

[willrosenthal]

You would not see much growth in 24 hours unless you had the plates at 98.6F. Room temperature may be too cool (if you are referring to room temperature as about 70 degrees F). let me know if you have any questions.

[heemo123]

I finished my project and ended up using a Styrofoam box with a low wattage light bulb and thermostat that turned the light on/off when it reached 98.6 degrees.

My question is now regarding a title. I used the ultraviolet light to simulate the sunlight and tested four different colors: clear, green, amber, and blue. The title I thought of was: Color your Water Clean: Does the color of the PET bottle affect the efficacy of the SODIS process?

Is this a good title or is it misleading?

Thanks for your help.

[heemo123]

I didn't get an answer for my previous question and I have another. For the sodis project on the website it says to use a scatter plot of the data. Do I average the three trials for each color at each time interval or do I plot each trial separately. Also, is there an alternative to a scatter plot than would be able to show the results accurately? I'm a little confused with that type of graph.

[pswiatko]

Hi heemo123,

I hope I'm not too late, but that sounds like a good title!
Also, regarding scatter plot - yes, you can average the 3 trials. If you don't like the scatter plot, I'd suggest using a bar graph.

Peter S.