Germ Experiment

Last week our expert, Mrs. Randle, left us some agar plates to conduct our own experiments. The students picked three places in the school to swab and see if anything grew on their plates. Here are their results.

This is the plate from the bathroom urinal handles.

This is what grew from the floor swabbing.

Here is the swabbing from the walls around the building.

The fuzzy growth is fungi, and the others are unknown at this time.

Germ Expert

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.

www.giantmicrobes.com

Project Germs

We are entering phase two of our project about "Germs". Today the students learned about the importance of handwashing and how easily germs are spread. I had received a germ glow light kit from Mrs. Bastin that has a bottle of fake germ powder that glows under a black light. We used this kit for our exeriments today.

First I passed around "Chester the Raccoon". I had liberally sprinkled the germ powder all over him. The students noticed he was dusty, but didn't think anything about it. After they had all touched him, I shared that Chester was sick and infected. That meant he had a lot of germs on him. We used the black light to see the germs on their hands. Even one student who had barely touched Chester still had enough germs on her hands to glow.

I had the students wash their hands, but told them not to use soap or warm water. They rinsed their hands quickly and dried them with paper towels as usual. They were surprised to see that there were still germs on their hands. We discussed how to properly wash our hands and how important it is to use soap, hot water, and scrub them for an appropriate time, etc.

When we looked at their hands this time, most of them had washed off all of the germs. However we were still able to see students who had not washed their wrists or under their fingernails. The interesting part for them was realizing that even though they washed their hands free of germs, there were germs now showing up in their hair, on their clothes, and especially on their faces. This let them see how much the germs had spread over their bodies in the short time since they had been infected.

Now that the student understand how to use this kit, we will be able to have them design their own experiment to test hypotheses.

Germs Make Me Sick

We have been talking a lot in class about staying healthy. We frequently wash our hands during the day, and students are expected to use hand sanitizer each time they enter the room (morning, after recess, after specials, etc.) We have reviewed how to properly cover your mouth when you sneeze or cough and how to avoid spreading germs. Today we watched a Reading Rainbow movie called "Germs Make Me Sick". The students were excited to see live germs and learned some valuable information from the film.

Please remember that if your child is sick, that they must be fever free for 24 hours before returning to school. As much as I want all the students to be here in class, I would rather they stay home and recuperate. I am hoping that with the recent headlines about flu season and H1N1, we will be able to remain healthy and it will not be the pandemic it is predicted to be.

I do not typically send home make-up work unless the child is absent for several days. Most of it can be made up in class, although much of what we do revolves around classroom discussions, games and activities that can't be done at home. If you are looking for ways to occupy your child while they are home, they can practice their reading, write a story about being sick, or practice their math facts. This depends on how they are feeling though, and is not to say I am encouraging you to make your child do homework.

I wish you all a safe and healthy year.