Sky

Journal entries imported from the previous iteration of wisrd.org

SKY

Day 22 (May 12, 2016)

Day 19 (May 9, 2016)

Day 8 (April 28, 2016)

Day 7 (April 26, 2016)

Day 6 (April 25, 2016)

Day 3 (April 21, 2016)

Pictured here is the new batch that were swabbed today, (April 19, 2016) Day 1         

Here are more pictures of the bacteria growing on agar. The bacteria has been growing for around 52 days now. Pictures were taken today, April 18, 2016        

These are photos of the bacteria growing on agar. The bacteria has been growing for about 46 days. These photos were taken on April 11, 2016        

Week 10 (March 18. 2016): Sorry I haven’t posted in awhile, I was out sick with the flu and we had the Multicultural Symposium. First off, I wanted to let you know that bacteria is growing on most plates from the bathrooms. (Below, you will find some pictures of the bacteria). Since I was out sick, I was not able to document the growing process. This week, so far I have made nutrient agar but because of Spring Break, I will be waiting to collect samples so I would be able to document by taking pictures. My plan for when I get back will be, 1st: Go around to each bathroom and rub everywhere on either the sink knob or door knob with a q-tip. Second: Let the bacteria grow by placing the plates in the dark warm cabinet. Third: Come in every day at lunch and take a picture of each plate with my Iphone 5s camera 5 inches away from the plate. That will be my plan for after Spring Break after I take the samples.

Week 7 (March 4. 2016): Today, I found out that I was able to grow bacteria successfully. (You can see pictures below). I first checked at around 11am on Monday and I say bacteria growing on 4 agar plates. Bacteria grew from the boys middle school restroom, the girls high school restroom, the boys restroom and girls restroom in middle-high hallway, and the girls middle school restroom. I was able to identify some of the bacteria’s shape but others, I was not able to do so. The issue is that even though the agar that I made was very with nutrients, the bacteria was growing extremely slowly so when I checked on Monday, there was barely any. The mistake that I had made was that I did not document the bacteria growth properly. What I should have done was I should have taken photos daily. Instead, I took photos of the bacteria every class, which I only have 3 days out of the 5 days at school. Next time, I will take the time to take pictures every day at the same height.  

Week 6 (February 26. 2016): This week, I made a new set of agar. This time, I made it differently. Instead of using chicken broth, Tim gave me 2 chicken bouillon cubes. The 2 chicken cubes made the agar broth turn a darker orange yellowish color and so I knew that something would grow for sure. Then on Tuesday, I went around school taking samples from each restroom. The only problem was that I did not make enough agar broth so the boys and girls middle-high restroom both the door and sink knobs had to share one agar plate. (Below, you will find a picture of the agar). On top of the agar being extremely nutrient, when I went to each restroom, I could see that the door knobs and the sink knobs were dirty so i knew there would be bacteria that grew. My plan for next week is to see if any bacteria grew and if so, how much.

     Week 4 (February 12 2016): This week, I had a misunderstanding. On the bottle of pre made nutrient agar, when I melted it, I didn’t realize that I needed to add the extra chicken broth to make the bacteria grow. I found this out because on Thursday, I didn’t see any bacteria on my plate and so when I asked Tim about why no bacteria grew, he said that because I didn’t add nutrients, no bacteria would have grown. I made the mistake because on the bottle, it said that it had nutrients in it and so it didn’t clear my mind that I had to put extra broth in it.  Also on Thursday, I made new agar again for the 4th time. This time Tim gave me 2 chicken cubes so that way we would be sure that bacteria would be able to grow. Upon research about how much or what type of nutrients to add, I found on a website that adding the nutrient is the second thing that I should do. “Second, you must have the nutrient agar to put in them. What might you use as a alternative to the commercially available microbiological stuff? The answer is canned beef or chicken broth (supermarket) and agar (health foods store; sometimes called “agar agar”)”(https://www.science-projects.com/NAplates.htm). From this mistake, I have learned that in order for the bacteria to grow, there needs to be enough nutrients for it to feed off of.

Week 3 (February 5. 2016):   This week I decided to take a different approach to what agar I was going to make. Instead of making nutrient agar, I started to make LB agar. On Monday, I went to Paul’s room where he gave me a packet of LB agar. LB agar is an agar like nutrient agar except a little more sticky. After following the same procedure, I put the agar in the fridge to cool, then that Tuesday, I went to every bathroom and started to take samples. To do the female restrooms, I had facilities close the restroom for me before they had to clean it so I would be able to take the sample. Then I waited 2 days until Thursday to view the bacteria. Joe found me before I had a chance to see the bacteria and told me to talk to Tim. When I went down stairs, I found out that I still needed to add the nutrients and I forgot too. That being said, the one thing I learned is that I know how to make agar correctly because no bacteria grew. (this needs to be strengthened. This batch served as your control in some way, not sure exactly how, but let’s try to find something that we learned from this.)

Procedure for making agar

1. Take out 1 500ml erlenmeyer flask, 1 bunsen burner, and one stir pill.

2. Take out a hot plate and pre–set the temperature to number 6 (this is only specific to one type of hot plate. What other descriptor could you use?)

3. Flame sterilize the erlenmeyer flask and soap sterilize the stir pill.

4. Measure out 4.6 g of lb agar powder.

5. Measure out 200 ml of distilled water.

6. Pour the agar powder and the distilled water into the flask.

7. Put the stir pill in the flask.

8. Put the flask on the hot plate and set the stir dile to 4 and move the temperature dial from 6 to 8. (This is not useful to people without your stir apparatus and hot plate. How can you better describe this?)

9. Mix the agar powder and distilled water using the stir pill.

10. While the agar is being made, take out ___ amount of agar plates and make a four quadrant graph on the lid and on the bottom, pre label them where you are getting the samples.

11. Watch the agar until it starts to boil.

12. Turn the speed dial (?) to “0“ when it starts to boil.

13. If the agar looks like it is about to overflow from boiling, lift it up until it calms down.

14. After boiling for 2 minutes, have someone help you pour the agar into the plate.

15. After pouring the agar, put them (pronoun w/o antecedent) directly into the fridge.

Week 1 (January 22, 2016): At the end of week 1, I had a conversation with Tim about changing my idea about how I should work on my project and we came up with a new idea. Now, instead of ordering agar right away, I am going to make my own agar and see if there is going to be any bacteria at all on the knobs in the bathroom. Last Monday, I started by making the agar so that way on Tuesday, I could get swabs of the different knobs and on Thursday, see the different bacteria. It didn’t go as planned. I forgot to add the nutrients in the agar so on Tuesday, instead of getting samples, I had to melt down the agar that I had made the prior day and I had to clump it all together and put it back in the fridge to cool down and to keep it fresh so I would be able to use it again. Because I didn’t put nutrients in the agar, this Tuesday, I will be making the agar with the nutrients and then letting it cool down till Thursday. Then on Thursday, I will get samples from the bathroom and let it grow over the weekend. I will not be using a incubator because I will be letting it grow all weekend. Then the next Monday, I will be researching the bacteria that did hopefully grow.