Ou project is named Bacteria Cafeteria and this is a project focused on testing the amount of bacteria that accumulates on different types of masks over different periods of time. So far, Izzy and I have successfully finished transferring the bacteria and completing the experiment for 7 out of 9 masks. We still have the week masks for cloth and N95 left to finish. Looking at our progress, the agar plates growing bacteria from the completed masks are growing quickly and surprisingly abundant.
We theorized the procedure for our project after talking to the AP Bio instructor at SHC, Ms. Lo Guidice. She generously provided us with sterile swabs, offered us the use of her incubators, and gave advice on improving our experiment procedure. And having surfed the internet in search of different possible procedures that would serve its purpose in our particular experiment, we found quite a few videos and articles that were beneficial to our research. After a few experiments we decided instead of wringing out the damp mask and using a swab to transfer the bacteria, and to use pipettes to extract the bacteria from the bowl to the agar plate.