Blog 21: Research Significance

One way that this experiment is significant is to see if a higher sugar is a factor in decomposition of organic materials. This could help determine how long it takes for food waste to decomposed based on sugar content. This would be helpful for those who wished to start a compost pile to estimate how long it would take to break down certain foods and plan accordinly. This experiment closely ecology and how different organism react to each other by breaking down dead organisms. While there are many different factors that play a role in decomposition, sugar levels could help derive a connection between bacteria and the time it takes to break down an organism. 

Blog 20

Unfortunately the apples in the petri-dishes have not been dried and weighed yet. The apple slices will be taken out soon and set to dry. Until then the group must work on creating a control apple in the agar so there is a way to measure the effect of sugar content in the apples. Data will be added later once all the measurement are taken.

Blog 19: Observations

So far in the experiment we have successfully grown bacteria on the agar. Since receive test tubes containing E. coli were not received the experiment will continue with a different species of bacteria. The bacteria were examined under a microscope and rod shaped bacteria was identified on the slide. On the first day the Petri dishes containing the apples on the agar were very runny, but by the second day all of them had dried. To prevent them from drying out even further each Petri dish was sealed before being placed back into the incubator. So far the apples slices are turning brown and the bacteria have formed waves on the surface of the agar. The apple slices have also begun to give off a pungent odor when the Petri dishes as opened.

Bacteria under the microscope

Blog 17

Research from the E. coli experiment will be updated on the google file and shared with the team to track the experiment's progress.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1X1FOZLqyhzhU6LMIHfx9OFUkAWegmY6pjWiITcDtsAs/edit

The Effects of Sunlight: Fast Plant vs. Yellow Green

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1MmIWfotROevJcPOHB1gqxnVh_DBX9OgMiXtTVuA3CRg/edit

Blog 15 E. coli

E. coli are a form of bacteria that is found in human intestines. While E. coli has a bad reputation, in fact most are harmless and are an important part of the intestinal tract. The human body depends on E. coli to absorb Vitamin K and B complexes. However some E. coli can be extremely harmful and can cause hemorrhaging. These harmful E. coli come from being infected with a bacteria virus that can insert itself into the E. coli's DNA like E. coli O157:H7. E. coli cells are typically rode-shaped and 2 microns.

E. Coli is often used as a model organism in studies of microbiology and cultivated in a laboratory setting.  It also has many advantages like that it's easy to grow, has a fast growth rate, and has well established genetics. Many scientist have done tests on E. coli making it the organism that most is known about. E. coli is also a simple organism which makes it easier to study and isolate parts of its system for testing and research.

Blog 13

My favorite part of the fast experiment was the set up. I thought it was interesting to find solutions to create the desired conditions for the experiment. Planting the seeds and watching them grow was fascinating because they grew so rapidly and had a great range in growth. I thought it was challenging to organize the data and create all the different charts with the correct formats. I think if the data had been organized and all stored in one place before I created the graphs it would have been much easier. I think this experiment was a little challenging in the fact that we all had different schedules that we needed to work around. It was hard to assign days to take data since everyone was very busy and had many commitments.