Bacteria Lab

Melvin Melendez
Period 7/8
 PRE-LAB QUESTIONS

SAMPLE PLACES
Places in which you can find bacteria are on the floor, in people
mouths, the corner of the exit door the fish tank the trash can and the
in between peoples toes.

WHY?
I choose the places listed above because the places I chose like the
exit door and the floor seemed dirty. I also picked the places listed
above because the seemed like they are isolated from people or
isolated from cleaning products.

WHAT SHOULD I THINK ABOUT?

Some important things you should think about are places in which
bacteria would find it most convenient to live somewhere in which they
could thrive. A option would be somewhere where there is moisture or
some where that the bacteria would not be killed with cleaning
products.

2 TESTS
I would like to test the corner of ht e exit door just because it looks
dirty. I would also like to test in peoples mouths because I know
bacteria must be thriving in there.

THE BIG PICTURE

Bacteria are a large group of unicellular microorganisms. Bacteria are

the oldest living organism on earth. They are extremely small only
about a few micrometers in length. Bacteria have a wide range of
shapes, from spheres to rods and spirals. Bacteria re so small that they
can not see with the naked eye. Bacteria are found in the environment
as either individual cells or aggregated together as clumps. Bacteria
only have one single DNA chromosome that is found in the cytoplasm
of the cell because they do not have a nucleus. Some types of bacteria
can cause diseases but others make the life we live today impossible.
 Bacteria are almost everywhere you go. They can be found from the
highest of mountains to the deepest of oceans. They can be found in
the soil, in the air, in animals, and even in plants. Bacteria even live
on/in our bodies. Some bacteria have even been found 4700 ft.
underground. Scientists have even discovered that most bacteria live
in the air above us growing and reproducing in the clouds. Bacteria are
even found to live in glaciers and even in snow. Unlike bacteria that
thrive in the cold some like to live in the hot. Like hot springs where
temperatures reach up to 75°C. By the facts above you can say that
bacteria can live almost everywhere.

PURPOSE

The purpose of this lab was to see how many forms of bacteria I have
on my hands compared to my felloe classmates.

HYPOTHESIS
I think I will find the most bacteria in places in places that look dirty to
the eye because if it looks dirty that means that it has not been
cleaned by anything. I think I will also find the most bacteria in places
that seem to be moist because that seems to be where bacteria find it
easiest to live. Isolated places to me are also the best places for
bacteria to live because it is far away from things to bother it.

MATERIAL LIST

• PETRI DISH WITH NAURAL AGAR

• MY HAND – FINGERS AND THUMB
• BACTERIA LAB BOOKLET
• TAPE
• COLORED PENCILS

PROCEDURE

1. Receive Petri Dish with natural Agar

2. Write my first and last initial on my side of my Petri dish
3. Open Petri dish lid and pressed my thumb print in the natural
Agar, making sure I do not press to hard in order to not split the
Agar
4. Place lid back on the dish and shut it with tape
5. Place Petri dish in a warm place and begin daily observations.

RESULTS
After 8 days of testing I can see the results of the bacteria lab very
clearly.
Every ones bacteria was completely different from everyone else’s.
On the first day of observations you could already see the bacteria
forming on the agar. By this time I knew that an everyones
bacterium was going to grow in different ways. This was obvious if
you saw my bacteria at the first day of observations. My bacteria
was huge by the first day, it looked like someone put white fibers all
over my dish. On the other hand my partners’ bacterium was barely
a speck. The fact that everyones bacteria was going to look
different was obvious by the time the teacher said that we were
going to put our finger prints on the dish. On the second day of
observations my bacteria didn’t change much it just grew more
while my partners grew more than mine did. The same things
happened through days 3 and 4. By the 5th my bacteria was
dramatically different from the 1st day of observations. My
bacterium was all over the dish even on my partners’ side and it
grew a speck as well. By day 8 my bacteria was so huge that
everyone elses bacteria looked so tiny compared to mine. This was
because different people had different bacteria thriving on their
hands.

CONCLUSION
My hypothesis was much different what I finished with. I thought
that we were going to use one of our sample places like the exit
door and in people mouths, to my surprise I found out that we were
going to be growing our bacteria from our very own hands. I
thought that with the bacteria of the exit door the bacterium was
going to look like a piece of dirt with goo growing from it. With the
mouth sample I though it was going to look like someone spit into
the Petri dish. To my surprise the Bacteria on our hands was much
more clearer than my hypothesis of either places was going to be.