Kt's 10/25/09 Blog!!!

*Just so you know, I was absent from school Thursday Oct. 22 and Friday Oct. 23*

This week we learned how to perform a Gram Test to determine if our chicken bacteria collected in the petri dish is gram positive or negative.
To learn about this Jillian and I conducted a gram test with Mr. Finley and another group. Some steps of the test include:

• Sterilize needle
• Put distilled water on slide
• Rub sterilized needle on agar
• Drop 5 drops of different chemicals on slides

Our test results were gram negative because it did not retain the crystal violet dye and turned pink. So, I believe the chicken could have had proteobacteria. Some types of proteobacteria include Salmonella and Shigella.
It is important to know how to conduct a gram test because throughout our future science carrers we will often have to know whether something is gram negative or gram positive.

This week in Science we also talked about different types of bacteria such as Tetrabacillus, Staphlyococci, and diplospirillum. We learned these by putting together parts that make up bacteria. For example, I could cocci on the end of diplo and get diplococci, meaning a pair of circular bacteria. This is extremely important to know in science because you must know these terms when identifying bacteria to know what you're looking at.