Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

My son has a science fair project and he wants to grow slime mold. We have searched the internet and still aren't sure on how to get started. We do know that we need petri dishes with agar, we have purchased those but we don't know where to go from there. Please help us, the project is due in the middle of February and we wanted to get started now. Thank you in advance!!

Hello Lacey_B,
Thanks for your questions . What project are you and your son performing? What will you be testing, that is, what is the purpose for the project?
You said you purchased agar-did you also purchase the plasmodium (slime mold), most likely Physarum species? You will also need food for the mold (which should be oatmeal flakes placed at the outer edges of the mold) Your kit should tell you how to grow them, but here are some other resources that may help you. Let me know how it goes and if you have other questions.

Slime mold projects:
https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... ml#summary
https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... ml#summary

Slime mold kits/ resources:
http://www.carolina.com/slime-molds/sli ... rowing+kit
http://www.carolina.com/teacher-resourc ... 20cultures
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physarum_polycephalum

Growing slime molds:
http://www.exploratorium.edu/turbulent/slime.html

Hope that gets you started!

Thank you for you response. He wants to test how slime mold will react to household liquids like fingernail polish remover and vinagar. I went online and ordered a slime mold kit from Carolina.com I believe.

No problem-happy to help! That sounds like an interesting project. Please post here again if you have other questions.