Mystery TSA Dish Bacteria by Taylor Jones

Day 0: Left is 37°C and right is Room Temp

Day 2: Left is 37°C and right is Room Temp

Day 7: Left is room temp and right is 37°C 

Bacteria from room temp lab bench

Day 0:

I was curious as to how much bacteria was around my area and on the tools used in lab, so I tested our lab bench’s sink handle, the lab bench, and the microscope’s coarse focus knob. I hypothesized that they would all be relatively clean since the lab benches are cleaned frequently, however I thought the microscope knob may possibly show some bacteria since many different people touch it often. To test my hypothesis I swabbed each of the areas and assembled to identical dishes, one of which was stored at room temperature (24°C) and the other at 37°C.  

Day 2:

On day two after looking at both dishes, only really one bacteria had appeared. On the room temperature dish there was one small round bacteria where I swabbed the sink handle. It seemed as though my area is relatively clean.

Day 7:

 A week later I observed a minimal amount of growth. I bacteria discussed from Day 2 grew in size, but was the only bacteria present in the room temperature sink handle. The 37°C microscope handle grew a single bacteria that appeared similar to the sink handle bacteria but slightly smaller. The last bacteria that appeared was a small rounded yellow bacteria from the lab bench. It only developed a single bacteria on the room temperature dish.

Bacteria:

It seemed that the yellow bacteria may have been a type of Staphylococcus, based upon the reference:

http://www.microbelibrary.org/component/resource/laboratory-test/3114-colony-morphology?limit=0&limitstart=0