Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

I have already done my research with help from Medtronics sterilizaton services and now am writing my research paper where I find other experiments similar to mine. I was wondering if there have been any studys done on how clean restaurant tables are? I have found studies of their kitchens but nothing for the "front of the house." I am getting worried, the closest thing I have found was how clean silverwear is. I have been working on this project for 6 months and am running out of ideas for the research paper.
Thank you for your help,
Sarah

Hi,

I found this article online: http://www.kwch.com/Global/story.asp?S=11921368 .

Here's an article suggesting that restaurant customers value cleanliness: http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/conten ... 881&db=all .

Here's a very old study from 1920 where it looks like they did what you did: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1362862/ .

Remember, it's okay to talk about similar studies in your research paper--even if they looked at silverware or other surfaces in restaurants, they're still similar to yours and you can include them. You can also generally talk about how bacteria grow and are transferred from place to place, etc.

Let us know if you have any more questions!

Hi Sarah, here is a study that compares fast food and casual dining restaurants table cleanliness by looking at the bacterial count.

https://dspace.lib.ttu.edu/etd/handle/2 ... 2009-08-60

Michael