Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

I am now entering my senior year, and before I am to return to school, we are required to have results for whatever biology experiment we are pursuing.
I decided to research "how do different sugar solutions affect bacterial growth?". I am very low on time, and have started my experiment, but I am confused because I had never grown bacteria before, and it seems to be difficult to incorporate sugar into the experiment. I tried the experiment once; it has now been a week and I still have no results. I'm not sure how to do this. Should I mix the solutions into plain agar? Should I add them to nutrient agar or should I try to dab the solutions onto the surface of the agar?

Thank you!!

Hi Isavager,

I am sorry you are short on time. Start with reading the safety notes on microbial cultures: https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... fety.shtml

Then, select a project from the site. I like these ones, they are similar to what you suggested:
https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... p011.shtml

https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... p008.shtml

Alternatively, you could read about how bacteria grow and what their requirements are. Then, you could outline your experiment to do one of these things: Test if excess sugar is toxic to the culture, or test if sugar is required, or test if sugar substitutes can be used instead of sugar.

Tonya