Culturing Bacteria Lab
PURPOSE: To determine which location (the gym, the cafeteria, or the area near the parking lot door) within Middlefield Collegiate Institute will have the greatest number of bacteria.
HYPOTHESIS: At Middlefield Collegiate Institute, the gym will have the most bacteria, the cafeteria will have the second most bacteria and the area near the front door will have the least bacteria. This is evident because the gym is a moist and warm environment which will make the gym a suitable place for bacteria to thrive. Likewise, the cafeteria is warm and many people visit it occasionally, thereby making it a possible location for bacteria to cultivate. However, the cafeteria will be more sanitized in order to ensure that students
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The swab was exposed to the air when travelling to and from the location bacteria was supposed to be collected from. Hence, air-borne bacteria could have been introduced to the swab, thus, the bacteria cultivated on the petri dish for a particular quadrant could not have been solely from one location.
2. The bacteria may not have been incubated at exactly 30˚C, as the thermometer on the incubator has an uncertainty of 1˚C. Thus, impacting the bacterial growth on the petri dish.
CONCLUSION The floor of the parking lot entrance has the greatest number of bacteria within Middlefield Collegiate Institute as, the most bacteria were cultivated in quadrant two of the petri dish containing the nutrient-rich agar medium.
EXTENSION
QUESTIONS
D) The agar plates were incubated at 30˚C and not at the body temperature of 37˚C because incubating at 37˚C will encourage the growth of pathogens if they are present in the sample. Specifically, pathogens are threatening for human health and the growth of pathogens within a school environment would be hazardous to
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The similarity indicates that all the quadrants had some of the same bacteria in it which made some colonies the same. However, other colonies were different as, different bacteria were present in each quadrant. This can be explained because all of the Q-tips were exposed to the air before they were swabbed on the agar medium, hence, similar air-borne bacteria can be present in each quadrant resulting to similar colonies within each quadrant. Also, the area swabbed may have similar bacteria because they can all thrive in the same conditions, hence some colonies may look similar.
F) If colonies appeared on the control quadrant, I can conclude that the experiment was flawed. In other words, the results were inaccurate as, there were air-borne bacteria that also reproduced in the agar plate. Thus, the bacteria present in each quadrant were not solely from one location hence, the amount of colonies and their physical appearances in a quadrant would be erroneous, affecting the results.
G) The locations of the bacterial sources ranked from least growth to most growth would be as follows: cafeteria table, large gym floor, and the area near the parking lot
What do bacteria need to grow? For bacteria to grow the most typical thing that they like ate a warm and moist environment, but that is not all that they like. Bacteria also like and environment with a PH that is normal or close to a human PH and bacteria also like an oxygen rich environment. The places that could be common to find bacteria in a building are a keyboard, a water fountain, and restrooms. A keyboard is a common place for bacteria because it is being touched constantly with hands when people type and hands are warm, so bacteria like them. The water fountain is another place that is common for bacteria to grow because people's warm hands are touching it and also it has water, which causes it to be moist. The last place that bacteria will we commonly found in buildings are restrooms. The bacteria like restrooms because many people are in then and also there is a lot of water in them.
The first day an unknown sample was assigned to each group of students. The first test applied was a gram stain to test for gram positive or gram-negative bacteria. The morphology of the two types of bacteria was viewed under the microscope and recorded. Then the sample was put on agar plates using the quadrant streak method for isolation. There were three agar plates; one was incubated at room temperature, the second at 30 degrees Celsius, and the third at 37 degrees Celsius. By placing each plate at a different temperature optimal growth temperature can be predicted for both species of bacteria.
In this lab project, the microbiology students were given 2 unknown bacteria in a mixed broth each broth being numbered. The goal of this project is to determine the species of bacteria in the broth. They had to separate and isolate the bacteria from the mixed broth and ran numerous tests to identify the unknown bacteria. The significance of identifying an unknown bacteria is in a clinical setting. Determining the exact bacteria in order to prescribe the right treatment for the patient. This project is significant for a microbiology students because it gives necessary skills to them for future careers relating to clinical and research work.
Other human errors could have affected the results, such as not inverting the plate before putting it into incubation would not allow for bacterial growth. Not pipetting the tube up and down to mix the bacteria that settled at the bottom of the tube before starting the Gram Stain would not allow for an accurate reading because there wouldn’t be many bacteria on the slide. Passing the slide over the bunsen burner too many times, hence killing the bacteria and not allowing for a Gram Stain. If this experiment had to be redone, one improvement would be to allow for more than one plate without a point deduction. Unexpected human errors might interfere with a person’s results.
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