So far we have looked at the different types of bacteria, building our own model: We've experimented with growing bacteria cultures on agar in petri dishes testing which area of the kitchen was the dirtiest: And finding out which was dirtiest the loo or the sink? We are currently testing the efficacy of various cleaners…
Category: Biology
Spar-Klean Science: What is the dirtiest place in the kitchen?
We did this experiment along side our dish cloth verses the loo germ growing fest. First we made the agar from gelatin, bouillon and water: The children decided to take samples from the door handle, the coffee machine, the fridge door, the floor and the sink: My heart sank as I watched C11 poke the…
Spar-Klean Science – Is the loo really cleaner than the dish cloth?
I need to be honest and say I am posting this against my better judgement. I mean, no one is going to want to eat at my house if the cloth we use to clean the dishes is actually dirtier than my loo! That said, 'dirty' may be a misnomer here because we all know…
Project Based Learning: Microbes – Bacteria
This week we have been learning all about Bacteria. Bacteria, a type of prokaryotic cell, can come in an assortment of shapes: Source As we are currently studying the plague we decided to concentrate primarily on the rod-shaped bacilli, of which Yersinia Pestis (the bacteria that causes the plague) is one: Yersinia Pestis magnified x200 Source…
Incr-Edible Science: Yeast (Micro Fungi – part 2)
After covering mold type fungi in Part 1, we moved onto the unicellular yeast: This is Leeuwenhoek, the man responsible for the discovery of micro-organisms through his very simple 'microscope' A labelled diagram of a yeast cell Yeast as we know it To find out a bit more about yeast we mainly used the same resources as before: We…
Project Based Learning: Microbes – Fungus
We've just spent a couple of weeks learning about Fungi. We're not talking macro Fungi (mushrooms and the like) but Micro-fungi. Micro fungi are eukaryotic organisms which have an absence of the large fruiting body of the mushrooms and the like. Fungi such as mould, mildew, yeast and even rust. Both macro and micro fungus are vital…