Soap Wins

Hey—just an interesting note tonight. Sean did his science fair project on hand sanitizers. Soap won. Since we have no way of telling which organisms we grew on our agar plates, we just did a timed test to see which one killed the bacteria the fastest (We could have stained them gram pos/neg…. but we did not do that and Lord knows it would be too difficult to count them!)

Soap killed the bacteria in 3 minutes, the apple hand sanitizer from bath and body works killed the bacteria in 5, hospital grade epi-clenz killed it in 7 minutes and the alcohol gel (Germ-X) was still working on it at 9 minutes out.

Of course we know that the hospital grade stuff kills more strains of bacteria…. Like MRSA and also kills yeast and VRE….. We just tested the germs found on our hands in our own house.

We used Method Lavender soap from Target, in case anyone was wondering.

Sean’s hypothesis was that the hospital grade stuff would be the best, but soap won instead! Good lesson learned, huh!?





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Look what is Growing

Preparing for the final steps of Sean's experiment. You can see the dots, those are bacteria colonies. Fun stuff. To make agar plates, simply buy agar flakes at Whole Foods or another store. Mix according to the package directions and add to the petri dishes. For Matthew's sterile plates, we boiled the petri dishes and made sure all utensils were sterile, etc. This way we knew if water grew from the water samples, there really was bacteria in the water!

Growing Cultures on Agar Plates

Here's what is growing on the agar plates:

Getting Ready for the Science Fair

last week we prepared everything. Sterile agar plates to test water quality for Matthew. You can see him adding water samples to the plates (petri dishes) and Sean made agar plates to grow bacteria so that he can later test which hand sanitizer kills the most germs.

Science Fair!

Two weeks until the science fair!

On Friday, October 16, 2009 we will be hosting a Homeschool Science Fair at Star of Bethlehem Church in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. We invite all homeschoolers in our area to come out and participate! Set up will begin at 6:00 pm and the judging will begin at 7:00pm.

All participants must register to participate. Participation is FREE. We need everyone to register so that we set up enough tables for everyone prior to the event. We will also have participation ribbons and ribbons for placing in the Science Fair. We want all participants to receive a ribbon, so please help ensure that we have enough ribbons by registering! To register, please send an email to: catholicmomof3@gmail.com Subject: Science Fair. Please include number of children participating and ages.

Children of all ages are welcome to enter a science fair project. Projects will be judged based on the use of the Scientific Method. Projects that do not follow the use of the Scientific Method may be entered, but keep in mind that judging will be based on the student's ability to use the scientific method. Simple projects that adhere to the Scientific Method are encouraged. The purpose of the Science Fair is for kids to have fun while learning about the Scientific Method and how to implement it.

There will be several categories (not yet determined) and/or age groups, so younger children will not be competing against older children.

The Scientific Method:

1. Define the question or problem.
2. Collect data through research.
3. Formulate a hypothesis.
4. Experiment using a control and a variable group.
5. Express a conclusion that supports or rejects the hypothesis.
6. Share your data through written compositions and verbal reports.

The hyperlink in the text above also gives more in-depth information about the Scientific Method and includes project ideas.