TSA plate results by: Lisa Merritt

Lisa Merritt
TSA plate individual post




Figure 1: Photo of TSA plate after 3 Days. Left is room temperature and right is TSA plate at 37 degrees


Figure 2: Picture of bacteria found on the back of the phone from room temperature TSA plate.

Day 0: While I was doing this prelab was when I started to ponder what the most bacteria filled places at EDCC would be. I really wanted to pick specimens that would be interesting and exhibit a lot of growth!! I was also interested to know how many bacteria are on the back of my phone evidently a lot as you will see in the results of this post. I originally had a plan to swab the microscope but decided to go with the door handle of the lab instead.  In addition to my phone I tested The toilet handle of the boys room, the lab door handle, and my water bottle.

Day 2: Both TSA plates showed no growth, which was surprising and disappointing since I really thought that there would be growth.

Day 7. Both TSA plates exhibited growth.

Phone at Room temp:  Plate produced a plaque of one bacteria and what appears to be another type of bacteria.

Phone at 37: seemed to produce more types of bacteria than room temperature. A plague which spread across to the toilet handle part of the plate. Since there is a plaque above I concluded that the phone plaque spread to the toilet handle part and not the other way around. After magnifying the picture there might be two other types of bacteria or the same type of bacteria at different sizes. This was not something I was able to determine..

Boys room toilet handle at room temperature: The toilet handle specimen surprised me the most only ONE type and one colony of bacteria. I expected this to have a lot more bacteria.

Boys room toilet handle at 37: It could not be determined how much bacteria was found since the phone bacteria spread over to that side of the plate.

Lab door handle at room temp: The plate says microscope but I changed my mind to take a sample of the lab door. As you can see A LOT of bacteria grew on the room temperature plate Approximately 40 colonies. .All the bacteria seems to be the same type of bacteria. I would be very interested to know what type of bacteria that it is! Also consider washing your hands after touching the door handle! EWWW

Lab door handle at 37: Unlike the room temperature plate not much bacteria grew only one colony. This would mean that this bacteria growth thrives at room temperature.

My water bottle at room temperature: This was a last minute decision to test the water bottle. I figured it would be full of bacteria since I tote it around everywhere and touch equipment at the gym and drink water. However, I do rinse it regularly. I must be rinsing it fine because very little bacteria was there was only one colony at each temperature.

Conclusions: I need to rinse the back of my phone and wash my hands after touching door handle at EDCC. I would be interested to know if anyone else took the same samples of their phone, the door handle, or the boys room and if they got the same results.

Thanks for reading!