This week in science, we had more of hands-on classes, rather then taking notes and participating in class discussions. Some of us did the grams test on our Petri Dish Bacteria. We had to lightly swab with a thing with a tiny point. Everyone doing it with our group swabbed their own Petri Dish Bacteria. Then, we had to put the bacteria on a slide, but we didn't need a cover slip. We used tong looking objects to hold the slide and make it go in and out of the fire a few times to make it hot. I don't know the exact names, but we then had to put all these liquids and dyes on our bacteria. But, after every time we put a different kind of liquid, we would wash it off a little under tap water from the class sink. In the end, our slide turned out a tiny bit purple. It went pretty quickly and I didn't have really much time to really take thorough notes, observations or to draw pictures. I also wasn't very clear on what each liquid was doing either. It was a class long production. Hopefully, I can get a more clear description on what we were doing on Monday.

As I said in my last post, as a class, we all agree that we don't think the pond water that we hypthesised earlier was harmful, is actually harmful. We found that the organisms in the pond water were all harmless. So, we are pretty sure it's harmless. Now, we are leaning towards the chicken as the culprit of starting the outbreak. This chicken is from Cheap Chicken Hut. I am pretty sure I mentioned this restaurant in one of my earlier blog posts. We had swabbed the chicken with a swab earlier in the month and then swabbed the Petri Dish. We also did this with Mayo from Cheap Chicken Hut. Our results said that the mayo had a lot of bacteria growth and the chicken only had like 1/3 of the petri dish covered in bacteria. We are now pretty sure that we mixed the two up and accidentally thought the mayo was the one with a lot and then we realized that the chicken was. So now, our class is suspecting that the chicken started the outbreak and maybe had salmonella. It could also be sickly if it isn't kept at a cool temperature when it is not being cooked. Hopefully, I will have a final conclusion by next weekend after looking into all of my results during class this coming week.

That is what I learned this week. I will fill you guys in next week too.

My conclusion about the pond water

Here is the sample conclusion about the pond water that I shared in class today.

I don't think the pond water is harmful because most of the organisms we found in the water were harmless. Many of the organisms such as the gastrostrich, the water flea, the algae, an the paramecium were all harmless. We found that the water flea is eaten by fish, so if it isn't harmful to them, then it probably isn't harmful to us humans either. The algae just shows that the water is dirty, but doesn't have any harm to students. We aren't positive that a gastrostrich is harmless, bet we assume they aren't because nothing was mentioned on the websites we checked about it being harmful. In conclusion, we don't think the pond water is harmful or that it would make anyone sick.

Organisms were very important this week

Yet Another Week In Science Class

This week in science, we concentrated on microscopes. We had to learn all of the parts and their functions.

-The lens (eyepiece) is what you look through.

-The coarse focus makes big adjustments to your view.

-The fine adjustment makes smaller adjustments to you view.

-You carry the microscope holding the arm with one hand and your palm holds the base.

-The stage is where you put your slide.

-The objectives magnify your view.

-The body tube is also what you look through because the eyepiece connects to the tube.

-The stage clips hold the slide in place.

-The diaphragm controls the light.

-The mirror is the light source for the microscope.

We had to take an oral quiz which tested our knowledge on the functions and the placements of the parts of the microscope.

We had to take a written quiz which tested our knowledge as to where each piece is.

Lastly, we had to take one last quiz where we had to make a dry and wet mount slide.

We made up experiments with the chicken samples from Cheap Chicken Hut (the place we think is very suspicious.)With the chicken samples, we swabbed the chicken and then swiped the swab on to a Petri Dish. We did this with the mayo from Cheap Chicken Hut too, just with a different sterile swab and on the other side of the Petri Dish. We thought the mayo would have more bacteria colonies, but we found the mayo had tons more. We aren't sure this makes sense though, and neither does Mr. Finley, so we are going to double check our experiment.

We also made up an experiment with the pond water that many sick children swam in before they got sick. With a pipette, we took a drop of pond water on a slide and looked at it under a microscope. In one of the slides, we found many organisms, which included a Gastrostrich. Later, I will look up as to if the Gastrostrich or some of the other organisms are harmful or harmless.

That is what we did this week in science.

This week in science, we focused on Bacteria and Viruses.

But before that, I would like to talk about what happened to our Petri Dish with the bathroom samples. We thought that the Flusher would be the dirtiest thing and the Paper Towel Dispenser Handle would be the cleanest. But boy were we wrong! The part of the Petri dish for the Paper Towel Dispenser Handle had 152 colonies* of bacteria! The Flusher only had 3! We then realized that even the janitors think the flusher is dirty, so they clean that, but they never think of the Paper Towel Dispenser Handle as dirty. So they wash and clean the Flusher, but not the Paper Towel Dispenser Handle and it builds up bacteria and viruses. So that was our conclusion about why the Flusher and the Paper Towel Dispenser Handle had such drastically different amounts of bacteria colonies.

*colony- a group of bacteria made from one bacteria that reproduced.

So, back to Bacteria and Viruses. So for homework, we had to research the structure of a bacteria cell. We found that it had a Capsule, a Cell Wall, Membrane, Pili, Nucloid (DNA) and a Flagella. We also found that it is living because it

-Adapts

-Composed of Cells

-Respirates

-Needs Food

-D.N.A

-Reproduce.

I also learned that the:

Pili and the Flagella- Help it move

D.N.A- displays everything like heredity, actions and controls

Cytoplasm- holds stuff in place

Ribosomes- converts food to energy

Cell Membrane- acts as skin, keeps things contained

Cell Wall- Skeleton

Capsule- Protection

Then we talked about Viruses. We had a discussion on whether a Virus is living or non-living. I thought it was non-living at first- but as the discussion went on, I realized that it was non-living. Here is what we came up with as a class:

-Every living thing is composed of a cell--but a virus has no cell wall/membrane.

-Viruses have no mitocrion-- so the can't respirate

-They use us (cells) to reproduce--they can't if they don't have a human host.

-SOME only have RNA not DNA.

So, we found that a virus is actually non-living.

That is what I learned in science class this week.

What I Learned in Science This Week

This week in science, we kept observing and hypothesizing the Truman Middle School Problem. We started looking at interviews with the sick children and we have hypothesized some ideas about some of the restaurants people went to after the band concert. We are thing that Cheep Chicken Hut is suspicious because many interviewers said before they got sick, they wen to Cheep Chicken Hut. Mr. Segan will be giving us some more information on Cheep Chicken Hut and will be getting some food samples. We are also getting some blood samples of children that were sick to help us with this problem.

We also learned about some viruses, bacteria, and parasites in a simulation that shows just how small they are, compared to

the head of a pin. We had to magnify 1,000,000 times to see the rhinovirus. They are so tiny. We put these viruses, bacteria, and parasites into the categories of Macroscopic, Microscopic and Sub-Microscopic. Here is the link to show to the simulation that shows just how small some viruses, bacteria, and parasites are.

http://www.cellsalive.com/howbig.htm

We discussed and started an experiment this week too. This experiment is about the places in a bathroom with the least and most amount or viruses, bacteria, and parasites that cause sicknesses. For homework, we had to try to think about which places in our bathroom are the dirtiest and the cleanest. Then we had to make a hypothesis on WHY they were clean or dirty. The next day at school, we took swabs into the boys ad girls bathrooms and swabbed the places our objects that our group decided were the least dirty and the dirtiest. Our table tested the handle that flushes the toilet as the dirtiest and the paper towel handle as the least dirty one. Then we lightly swiped a Petri dish with the swab twice (Once for the flusher and once for the paper towel handle) with two different swabs. If we are right, at school, the place where we swiped the dirty swab should be very noticable and the place where we swabbed it we think will turn moldy. The place where we swiped the swab of the paper towel handle should be fairly clear with no mold. We will see what happens.

That is what we learned this week.