Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

Hi, im in the 11th grade...

I just wanted to know if experimenting on- canned food vs. fresh food to see which one of them is more prone to bacteria in different temperatures-is a good science fair idea...

I am planning to use cold temp., warm temp,and room temp.

Plzz help me figure out wat to do!!!!

I think this is a reasonable project.

Check out the microbiology project ideas:
https://www.sciencebuddies.org/mentorin ... ?from=Home
and scroll down to the "Resources" section on techniques and materials you could use for the experiment.

One question that you should consider comes to my mind--will you wash the fresh food first, or use it straight from the grocery store?

Hi
I think it's a good idea. You might want to check out this website just for some background information about the topic:
http://www.uga.edu/nchfp/how/general/en ... foods.html
Maybe you could also compare the difference in bacteria in foods which have been canned for different periods of time. The season of the year could also make a difference...just some food for thought, good luck!

Hello, this sound like an interesting science fair project, had you thought about comparing canned fruit juice with fresh fruit juice? Culturing solid food might be more difficult than liquid. To culture fluid, all you have to do is get a few loop of the same size (to be consistent) and compare the amount of colonies growth after a couple of days.
Just another idea.

Michael

Hi,

I think this sounds like an very interesting idea! You might also want to test different brands of canned food--different brands of the same type of food might induce more or less bacteria in a given amount of time. Best wishes on the project!