Health technologies seniors are required to do research on infection control. Our seniors in Health Technologies have been studying infection control. The students are learning how to find areas where microorganisms can grow and which of these microorganisms can cause infections and/or illnesses. One way to detect bacteria, viruses, or fungus, is to culture the area, and see what grows in a Petri dish. Petri dishes have a sensitive medium that allow bacteria, and other small microorganism to grow. Once the growth process has started, we can place a small sample under the microscope and see what it is and research its potential for causing a disease or illness.
The students gathered several cultures from around the school. They had cultured the cafeteria, sinks, water fountains, and several other areas. They allowed the cultures to grow, and see what we find. Cultures can take 24-72 hours to spawn some growths.
Once the swabs were complete, we place the samples in Petri dishes, incubated them and found that there is much more life than student life here at Eli Whitney. Many of the Petri dishes grew bacteria, fungus, and several other types of microorganisms.
Microorganisms are simply a way of life for all of us. We cannot destroy all of them, and we should not try to. They play an important part in controlling growth of many other microorganisms that live on our earth. However, this experiment has shown our student that these microorganisms do live, and that hand washing is the most important way to stop the spread of infection, since this experiment clearly shows us that germs are everywhere! |
