Richard+O'Keeffe

=Which area at Belmont Hill has the most Bacteria?=

Goals
toc The first goal of the project was to figure out which area in Belmont Hill had the most bacteria. The second goal of the project was to try to identify the bacteria that were most commonly seen after the incubation period.

Discoveries
After the lab, it was found that, despite research saying otherwise, one of the lunch tables in the Dining Hall had over 10 times more bacteria than any other area in the school with 627 colonies of bacteria. That research had actually said that the spigot of a water fountain would have the most bacteria, but the experiment showed that the spigot of the water fountain in the Science Building had only 9 colonies of bacteria after the incubation period. This discovery was very surprising and led me to wonder why there was such a data discrepancy between my findings and those of NSF International (1). It was also found that E. coli, Salmonella, and Staphylococcus aureus were the most commonly found bacteria. The project was very interesting and taught me to make sure I always clean my hands, even after doing common things such as touching a phone or touching a lunch table. Though my hypothesis of the spigot having the most bacteria was disproved, I still learned quite a bit and the project was very beneficial.

Challenges
The biggest challenges during the lab were making sure that there was as little contamination as possible, and this was overcome by not allowing anyone to breathe on the Petri dishes and also making sure that the sterile swabs were never taken out too early. Another issue was finding places to test, but this was overcome by me deciding that I would test a few areas in each of the academic buildings throughout campus. Identifying the bacteria ended up being a bit of an issue as well. The E. coli and Staph bacteria were easy to identify, but the Salmonella was a bit harder to identify and I was not able to identify a final, fourth bacteria that I found after the incubation of the Petri dish containing bacteria from a students hand.

Looking Back
Had I been able to do the project again: 1) I would have started a while earlier and tested quite a few more areas. It was a bit hard to acquire and consolidate all of the materials needed for the lab and that took up valuable testing time 2) I also would have let the bacteria incubate for longer periods of time (they were only left in the incubator for a couple of days) 3) I also would have gone out of my way to test many areas around the Jordan Athletic Center, as those areas are known to contain MRSA and other Staph bacteria. 4) Make sure you have all of your materials ready at the time you are. I was ready to start the lab, but did not have all the materials, so the start was delayed and I was crunched for time 5) I wish I had known how hard it would be to count the number of colonies one each Petri dish. Had I been able to find another way to measure, I most likely would have done it.