Running head: Hand Washing Lab Report

Hand Washing Lab Report

Joshua Espinosa
Physiology
3rd period
9/11/15
Mr. Young

Hand Washing Lab Report

Bacteria are a specific kind of organisms that are very adaptable and can survive in a
variety of environments. Because of all the rapid changes, bacteria can be found nearly
anywhere. Many people are not aware of the impact bacteria do to our lives every day. Even
though the fact that considering some bacteria are disease-causing bacteria (pathogenic), some
bacteria are good to humans and sometimes to life. Probiotic bacteria give good health effects to
the people. To learn more about bacteria we did a lab in Mr. Youngs class, to study bacteria and
its amazing what we saw, there were even maggots in some plates of students. What we did was
taking a cotton swab and having to swab the hands of a student one student washed the left hand
while another student washed the right one we took a sample from a fingertip of the students
hand (left) and a sample from the other hand (right). We hypothesized that the plate that was
swabbed with a clean fingertip (with hand sanitizer) would have fewer bacterial colonies than the
other hand that was washed with soap.

After becoming familiarized with what the teacher told us, we tested our hypothesis.
First, we gently rubbed one fingertip in a sterilized agar plate using caution to avoid infection
from the air while the lid was open. Then, we washed our hands and repeated the procedure with
another division on the agar plate. The agar plate was tightly closed to prevent contamination.
They were then put in an incubator from Mr. Youngs room for 48 hours at 40C with the lids
facing down to prevent the germs from contaminating the other colonies

Agar plates prior to incubation period

The plate was then observed closely after a 48 hour incubation process. The difference
between them was huge you could tell the hand sanitizer one the soap one and not washing our
hands at all, there was a little bacteria on the hand sanitizer one and some on the soap one and a
lot on the one we didnt wash our hands. There were 3 different colonies in the plate so I think
our lab was successful.

This experiment was so simple but very eye opening in many ways it doesnt just show
how important it is to wash our hands but shows us the right techniques on doing a lab correctly
without getting other germs in our plates when we are studying bacteria. If we had the plates
open during the swabbing for bacteria, the bacteria already in the air and other surfaces could
have contaminated the plate which could have led to incorrect data. Even after carefully washing
our hands to avoid contamination of the sterile agar plates, a lot student dried their hands with
non-sterile towels or paper towels which could have led to other germs. This could have been the
cause for more bacteria than expected on the plate. But this experiment sure will keep me and my
hands germ free.(only from the bad germs the good germs are okay they can contaminate me
with their goodness anytime;)