Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

Hello,

I am doing an experiment on how different genres of music effect bacterial growth for my 9th grade science expo. I was wondering what the best way to collect bacteria samples would be and what i would need to keep the samples in.

Thank you for your time.

Hi Artemis7402,

That sounds like an interesting experiment. I think that the most straightforward way to grow the bacteria would be to grow it on agar plates, though I am not sure what you are planning to use as your source of bacteria. You will want to make sure you are starting with the same amount for each condition in order to make a fair comparison. Perhaps you could get a commercial stock of known concentration and then add the same amount of liquid to each plate. You would then grow the plates in an incubator (usually 37 degrees C).
Alternatively, you could have liquid cultures in which the bacteria is grown in Luria broth media, although this method requires more equipment because you would again need to add the same amount of starting bacteria in each case and you would need to grow the bacteria in a shaking incubator and then do a densitometry measurement to determine the concentration of bacteria in each culture.
If you provided more information about how you plan to carry out the experiment it would let us provide more specific advice.

Elizabeth