Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

How about if I do test the items on the agar plates without adding water? For my controls, I could keep the agar plates closed but near the item.

Q1. If this is not possible, would you recommend me to put the agar plates outside or indoors? I actually want different types of interesting, eye-catching colonies to write about.

Q2. What are we measuring in this experiment?

Thanks a lot!

Hi XtremeScience,

If you eliminate the step of using a sterile cotton swab in water to transfer the bacterial and just open up the plate and expose it to air, then your control will be an agar plate that is sealed and not opened. All of the sample plates would be opened up and left exposed for 3 hours.

If you want to have more colored colonies, then open up some of the plates in an outside environment that is normally exposed to sunshine. Your study would be about microbial diversity, but you could compare results of inside and outside locations. I think that would work well and would make your project idea more unique.

Donna

Hi XtremeScience,

Here's the answer to the second part of your question.

You can document the total number of colonies on each plate and use the following guide on this website to describe each colony:

https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... ates.shtml

You could count the number of colonies that appear each day.

Once you have the data, you can decide how to graph it.

Donna

Hello!

I've had some advice and I think it would just be easier to do the disinfectant project. I'm really sorry for all the confusion!
Your additional research for the 'germ invasion' project won't be needed.

So, I've done some parts on my project so far: Hypothesis, references/bibliography,introduction, materials & procedure.

Now I'm doing my experiment on Monday, I'll attach the pictures later!

Hi XtremeScience,

Thanks for letting me know. Going back to the original project will definitely save time. You can save the biodiversity project for next year if you want to.

Good luck on Monday.

Donna