My Science Project- By Gemma

This year for my science project I chose what area in Reremoana School has the most bacteria for my topic. I chose this topic because I was curious about it.

Materials:

10 Petri dishes
• 10 control bags (snap lock bags)
• 10 test swabs (cotton buds)
• 1 scissor
• 1 roll of masking tape
• 1 vivid
• 4 surgical gloves (so samples don't get contaminated)

Method:

1. Take control bags and test swabs and 2 gloves to school.
2. Swab, using the test swab, Room 11's door handle.
3. Quickly put test swab in control bag and seal it.
4. Follow the same process (using different test swabs and control bags for each swab) with; the keyboard, swing door in toilet, sink in toilet, Room 11 desk, test swab, control bag, staffroom bench cloth and the fridge handle in the staffroom.
5. Take home swabs and place in bedroom closet.
6. Record observations and take photos each day.

Hypothesis:

I hypothesize my outcome will be that the staffroom bench cloth, computer keyboard or basin samples will contain the most bacteria. I think the sample with the least bacteria will be the hall stair rail because it doesn’t get touched or used as much as the other samples.

Results:

 

While growing my bacteria samples it produced a foul aroma that got stronger each day. Various types of bacteria grew on the samples; the bench cloth sample grew a lot of only yeast, basin sample grew a lot of orange pigment, round, entire opaque, so did the hall stair rail (only a small amount), the door handle sample grew filamentous shaped colonies and a lot of the samples grew the most common bacterial colonies.

Discussion:

 

In concluding my experiment I have found that the bench cloth, basin and keyboard samples contained the most bacteria, surprisingly they all grew different types of bacterial colonies. The least amount of bacteria grown was on the hall stair rail, desk and toilet swing door samples. As you my notice on my photos there is a split in the nutrient agar on the toilet swing door sample which may have been the reason for no bacteria growth on the sample. Fortunately that was the only problem during the process of my experiment. For the test swab and control bag sample (My base swabs) results, the test swab sample grew no bacteria at all, the control bag sample grew a small amount of bacteria. My hypothesis was correct. I hypothesized the right outcome for the most amounts of bacteria grown and the least, only I didn’t think the desk sample would have the least amount of bacteria.

 

During the science fair presenting in the hall, I displayed my samples. Every person that came to me said " Ewwww really?". My experiment shows, with some things around our school, we need to clean more!