Tracking down bacteria: The results of the SimplyScience competition

The SimplyScience foundation called for a big agar plate bacteria experiment for school classes and received some creative submissions.

How many bacteria does our skin carry? What difference does it make whether you wash your hands with or without soap? How do you grow the bacteria? The aim of the competition was to get to the bottom of these questions while learning the first working techniques of microbiology.

The competition experiments

Experiment 1: handprint
Since the spread of COVID-19, it has often been pointed out: Regular hand washing can reduce the transmission of pathogens such as viruses and bacteria. The experiment, using agar plates provided by Axonlab, was designed to show what difference the use of soap and/or disinfectant makes when washing hands. The incubation period was followed by the plate comparison with unwashed versus washed hands.

Experiment 2: dilution streak
With a fresh agar plate and the choice of a colony grown in experiment 1, the next experiment was carried out. Using a sterile inoculation loop, a single colony was transferred to the new agar plate. With this so-called dilution streak, a pure culture is obtained: from at most different bacteria on plate 1 to a colony from a single bacterium. This makes it easier to identify the pathogen. The technique to choose from was the classical streak plate method or painting a "living work of art" – with the inoculation loop, the pupils could give free play to their creativity.

After completing the experiments, the agar plates were sterilised with a bleach solution and disposed of properly. The photos taken beforehand, together with the findings, were recorded on a poster and submitted to SimplyScience.

It was no easy task to choose the winning class from the creative entries. Here is the winning poster of class 5b, primary school Kaselfeld, Bellach:

More results and the competition details:
SimplyScience competition (in German)

 

 

Some of them were so eager to do their work that they created more experiments with the agar plates beyond the tasks set. We are pleased that Axonlab was able to make a contribution to the examination of bacteria and to support the immersion in the world of microbiology.

 

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