Blog post Week 2

Good afternoon everyone. So this is week 2 of S-STEM and I have learned very much about the procedures and how to classify bacteria. This week I took my TSA plates and saw that bacteria had multiplied. By this I was able to choose one single colony to begin my procedures in finding what kind of bacteria it is. Along the way, I made a simple error and unfortunately I have to redo it again. It was after putting them in the micro glass that adding the chemicals to help identify the characteristics of bacteria is where I made an error as. I noticed when I saw through them on the microscope that I couldn't identify them as either gram negative or gram positive because they were both colors. As a result, yesterday I began a new TSA plate and let it incubate for 24hrs. However, coming back today, I took it out and saw that nothing had grown on it! So I have redone now two TSA plates: One using the broth and the other using the actual dish that the bacteria was on. Hopefully by tomorrow I have the multiplied growth of bacteria to find my unknown.

Multiplied growth of unknown Bacteria

Micro glasses with my bacteria to view under a microscope

Blog Post Week 1

        Good afternoon everyone. It’s exciting to be part of S-STEM this semester and hope to complete a great internship. Well today I began my project by taking an unknown sample, and making what is called a lawn streak (Top) and an isolated streak (Bottom). The lawn streak is done to make a culture of the unknown bacteria, by the individual cells multiplying to form millions of identical cells. The three quadrant streak is to isolate single colonies of the unknown for macroscopic examination. They were placed in the incubator with a temperature of 36.7 degrees Celsius where the growth will begin. The ideal temperature for bacterial growth is 25-37 degrees Celsius.

Lawn Streak and Isolated Streak of Unknown (before)