As we begin our third week, we will be looking at many different bacterial experiments.
Monday we began our bacterial synergism experiment in which we will observe the interactions of bacteria growing in the same petrie dish. Some students will grow control dishes with only one kind of bacteria, and the others will have different strains of serratia marcescens in different combinations. The students also learned how to extract DNA from E. coli. We also went on a tour of WKU’s Biotechnology center. Naomi Rowland was kind enough to take the students on a tour of the lab and explain the functions of many of its machines.
Today, our students will be doing several virtual labs concerning biotechnology such as microarrays. They will also be completing another DNA extraction and a PCR simulation that will help them further understand how the PCR machine replicates a tiny amount of DNA into an amount a researcher needs.
Tomorrow, Dr. Andersland will be taking our students on a tour of the electron microscopy lab. They will also be beginning an experiment during which they will observe how environmental variables such as temperature can affect the growth of bacteria.
