Today Mrs. Randle came to speak to our class about germs and her job. She works in a lab at Wishard Hospital which analyzes medicines to see how effective they are against strains of germs and also tests the cultures that are sent in from your doctor's office for things like strep, etc.
She brought in some agar plates that she had set up for us yesterday. On one, she had rubbed her hand on the bottom of her shoe and then placed her dirty hand on the agar. Then she washed her hands thoroughly and placed her clean hand on the other plate. Here are the results:
This is the agar plate that had the dirty handprint. It grew lots of germs: staph, fungi, and bacteria. The thumbprint was where all of the fuzzy growth is.
This is the agar plate with the handprint after washing her hands. It did not grow anything.
Students also made observational drawings of the agar plates and also of the microscope that she brought in. It had all the same pieces and parts as the microscopes we use here in the classroom, except it was biocular and an oil immerison microscope.
Students enjoyed looking at the prepared slides that our guest speaker brought to share. She also showed us a website that had animated characters that looked like real germs. The children really enjoyed seeing them come alive.
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