Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

Hi,

For my science project, I plan on finding out which household cleaner is best at killing bacteria. I grow a culture of bacteria found on a table surface before and after using a household cleaner. I have some experience with growing a culture. I know that that you can use a sterile swab on a wet surface (such as the inside lining of your mouth) to transfer the bacteria to the petri dish.

However I don't know how you can transfer bacteria from a dry surface like a table surface onto a petri dish. Can anybody tell me how? Thanks

Hello,

You should be able to use the same pocedure. Check out this site:

http://facweb.furman.edu/~liaomin-ken/S ... nique.html

The section titled "How clean is your lab?" should be applicable to what you want to do because essentially you want to measure how clean is the table surface after using a particular type of household cleaner.

Shijun

Thank you very much, shijun