Model of a Natural Phenomenon

In soil there are a lot of different kinds of bacteria. Some of this bacterium tries to invade living organisms, and some of it tries to defend the living organisms by surrounding the invading bacteria and cutting it off from the rest. By taking a few samples of bacteria from soil, you can see this process in a model on an agar plate.

In the above picture, I took some samples of soil and transferred it to an agar plate using sterile cotton swabs and nutrient agar. I then grew the samples for 48 hours in an incubator set at 39 degrees Celsius for optimal growth. The agar plates make a good model for how the bacteria work in the soil. You can see the bacteria on the outside start to surround the bacteria in the middle. The bacteria on the outside are commonly known as bacillus mycoides, and are a defense for plants. It lives in the soil and becomes active when a harmful bacterium invades the soil and tries to harm the plants or other living organisms in the soil. This type of model is easy to reproduce in a classroom and great for students to see how the bacteria work.