Getting a Home Bacteria Project Started

Suggestions to Help get Your Project Going Quickly

This page, when completed, will outline a path you can follow to developing an outstanding bacteria science project which would surely win a top place in your science fair, or a years long hobby which would surely win you a science scholarship.

Safety

Don't fail to read the safety pages and discuss safety with your parents and teachers. The projects in this web site vary in risk. Some are totally safe because you eat these bacteria everyday, but you do have to handle them carefully so that they do not become contaminated with disease producing organisms (pathogens). The best rule of safety is read widely so you are likely to spot danger early.

If you choose to work with common organisms which are used in making food, materials will be available in the home and safety concerns will be greatly reduced. The bacteria which are used to produce butter, cheese, and dairy products or the yeasts and bacteria used to produce bread are good choices for the beginner.

Scan The Sections to get an Introduction to this Site

Pages B001 to B019

These pages will give you an overall view of what bacteria are and how they fit into the web of living things. If you like science, you will find some of these pages very interesting. You will learn much to make you study of later pages more understandable.

• B001 - Letter to the Beginning Student - Read before trying any of these experiments.
• B002 - Letter to Parents - Read before giving your child permission to try these experiments.
• B003 - What's New in these Bacteria Pages during January 1998
• B004 - What are Bacteria? A short introduction
• B005 - Bacteria: Friends or Foes?
• B006 - Believe it or Not. Strange, but true facts about bacteria. Too new to be in books!
• B00? - More basic information about bacteria

B020 - B039 Starting your Home Microbiology Lab

This is a series of Experiments. If you wish you can develop one or more of the pages into a nice science project. Instead of buying a science kit, you use these pages to develop your own home science lab. In the first experiment, you can try growing bread yeast on various carbohydates. The main method for identification of bacteria and yeasts is to determine which carbohydrates they can use for food.

• B021 - Your first microbiology experiment: does yeast grow in corn syrup, sugar, or starch?
• B022 - Make E-Broth from ground beef on the kitchen stove - a meat broth medium.
• B023 - Dispense your media: stabs, slants, plates, deeps: aerobic and anaerobic media
• B024 - Sterilize and store your media: use pressure cooker or steamer; store dust-free
• B025 - Make a loop and streak gelatin or agar plates to isolate colonies
• B026 - Start your own pure cultures collection. A good way to begin learning the genera.
• B027 - Reuse plastic plates and trays. Experiments using bacterial lawns
• B028 - Milk media. Many bacteria grow better in milk than in meat broth.
• B029 - Make media from potato, carrot, tomato, rice, hay, grass: slices, plugs, and liquid
• B030 - Stock Cultures Media - as used at Indiana Biolab <== READ THIS PAGE
• B031 - Chemolithotropic media: rocks and sulfur; mud jars.
• B0?? - Simple diagnostic media which can be made at home.
• B0?? - More about anaerobic bacteria: media and methods for culturing them
• B0?? - Introduction to enrichment and selective media for specific genera of bacteria
• B038 - How to count bacteria, plus sub pages on statistics, equipment, simple to complex
• reports by students doing microbiology expriments at home; send yours today.
• B039 - Summary of tools, equipment, and media for your Home Micro Lab. Incomplete

B030 - B059 Standard Methods used in Microbiology

Some of these experiments require some purchases such as agar, tryptone, phenol red, petri plates, sugars, ferrous sulfate,

• B031 - What are agar, tryptone, yeast extract, and the other ingredients used in media?
• B0?? - Preparing professional media from tryptone, yeast extract, agar grades, origin of
• B0?? - Formula for professional media
• B0?? - Formula for diagnostic media
• B0?? - Formulae for bacteriological stains
• B0?? - Streaking plates to isolate bacteria and obtain pure cultures
• B0?? - Making slide mounts and using microscope
• B0?? - Building and maintaining a collection of bacteria generally considered safe.
• B0?? - ?building equipment for advanced work, laminar flow hoods, safety cabinets.
• B0?? - working with strict anaerobic such as rumen bacteria and methane producers

B060 - Experiments: Effect of environmental factors on the growth of bacteria

• B061 - Oxygen requirements of bacteria
• B062 - Optimum temperature for some common bacteria: 4C, room temp, 37C, 55C
• B063 - Osmotic pressure (salt) of medium and bacteia
• B06? - pH effect on bacterial growth
• B064 - Nutritional requirements of bacteria
• B065 - Carbohydrates used by bacteria - diagnostic assays
• B0?? - Carbon sources used by bacteria
• B0?? - Nitrogen sources used by bacteria
• B000 - Disinfectants action on bacteria
• B000 - Killing of bacteria by UV, heat, and agents is a logarithmic function
• B000 - chemo- and organo- tropic nutrition
• B000 - Bacteriophages (viruses that attack bacteria)
• B000 - Bacteriocins that kill bacteria

B090 - The classification of Bacteria: main groups, families, genera, archeobacteria

• B095 - Short list of distinctive Genera of bacteria; good student should know these

B100 - Food Bacteriology: Experiments with the bacteria you eat every day

• B10? - Making foods by selective fermentations of cabbage, cucumbers, peanut, sorghum, tea fungus, drinks, soybean, breads, cover most primitive fermented foods. `
• B10? - Improvement of primitive fermented foods by pure culture methods
• B120 - Isolation of pure cultures of bacteria from human foods by students at home.
• B121 - Isolating and using pure cultures of bacteria in production of fermented foods.
• B122 - Isolation of Brevibacterium linens from Limburger Cheese at home by a beginner.

B200 - Isolation and study of bacteria from nature with descriptions of family, genus, species

• B203 - Isolation and characteristics of Vibrio phosphoreum, glows brightly.
• Eventually dozens of bacteria will be covered in detail in this section.

B800 - Medical bacteriology; move pathogenic discussions here - not ready (incomplete)

• Introduction to bacteria pathogenic to humans- Required reading for safety
• B801 - First micro safety page for beginners - required reading for safety
• B802 - Safety page for High School and Begin College students
• B??? - lists of pathogenic bacteria class 1,2,3, 0=no report of disease
• B0?? - The pathogenic bacteria: disease causing bacteria, plants and animals, microbiol. safety

B900 - Bacterial genetics

There is no need to go out and buy lots of equipment. Begin with Home Micro Lab by making media from common kitchen foods and isolate some bacteria.

Can lids, or flat bottles can replace glass petri plates. Bottles can serve as culture tubes, or your teacher may loan you culture tubes and supplies. If not try a hospital, they throw away lots of items you can use and if autoclaved they are perfectly safe. Before you trouble a hospital for gifts, do a few week's work at home and prove that you are really interested and planning to work hard.