A Dead Bunny and Bacterial Growth

We are in our third week at co-op and we just started Module 2, Kingdom Monera, in Apologia Biology.  Kindom Monera consists of Prokayotic cells.  These cells do not have a distinct nucleus and are usually bacteria.

Yesterday’s class was mainly describing the bacteria and how it reproduces asexually.  They reproduce sexually also, but yesterday’s topic was asexually.  Just so ya know.

To help with visuals, I used  The Intelliboard.  I am getting better at using it, but I have lots yet to learn.  Like one of the buttons makes the screen disappear and we can’t figure out how to get it back.  We escaped and the page came back.  Go figure.  Anyhoo….

Here are two of the four pages I made for this lesson.

The black and white picture on the left is an actual photo of a Salmonella Bacteria.  The blue fella on the right is an artist rendition of that Salmonella, done by one of my students.  It’s happy.

This next page is all mine.  Yep, I’m the artist on this one.  Cool huh?

This chart is the Growth of the Population of Bacteria.  The lower left figure is a dead bunny with lots of blood pouring out of it wounds.  The green dots are bacteria.   Bacteria will reproduce rapidly as long as there is a food source; the dead bunny.  The top flat line is called the Steady State, where the bacteria die off as fast as they reproduce.  Then they start to decline, die off faster than they reproduce.  That is unless something dead falls right out of the sky, in this case a dead cow and lands on top of the bunny leftovers, the bacteria will soon die off.

The yellow square portion is called the Logistic Growth.

For some reason one of my students requested I send her this page so she can put it on FB.  So I did.  I know she is in awe of artistic abilities and I also know she probably won’t forget this.

You may bestow your highest compliments on my awesomeness.  Not everyone can draw and explain the growth of bacteria like I can.

🙂

 

A Microscopic World

During the pond water experiment, Part B,  for our Apologia Biology class, I had one of the students set up a slide for the camera microscope.  This drop of water is from the jar with the egg food source.   It was very difficult to find the little buggers, but we did.  🙂

If you look at the video carefully, you should be able to see:

Rod-shaped bacilli, which is the most common.

Spiral-shaped spirilla, which are large and wiggly.

Spherical cocci,  we are not sure if we saw any of these.   It was hard to tell.

Towards the middle of the movie, you see the lighting change.  I was hoping the change of light would make the bacteria show up better, but it didn’t.

The amazing work of God.

Growing Bacteria Part B

Apologia Biology

Growing Bacteria Part A

After collecting the pond water and adding the food source, we let the jars sit for five or six days.  Now it is time to have a look at what was growing inside.

The first culture the students decided to look at was the one with the egg.   They open the container and turned up their noses.  Notice there are no windows in our classroom.

After the initial shock of the smell, the students were able to collect a sample.

Then place a drop on the slide. It looked as bad as it smelled. lol

The purpose of this experiment was to try to locate several types of bacteria and possibly identify them. Here is a photo of what we saw.

We were able to isolate some of the bacteria and identify them, but I wasn’t able to get photos.  We did see a great volvox.

Live video of bacteria.

The other cultures did not smell any better than the egg. View what happened with they opened the bottle with the rice food source.

Kind of makes you want to hurl, doesn’t it?  😀

This completes our Module 2.  Next week we begin Module 3 and study the Kingdome Protesta.

Growing Bacteria

Module 2 of Apologia Biology.

In this module we are instructed to go out, collect pond water, and observe God’s creation.    Thursday, was the day I took one of  The Peas to a nearby park to collect the pond water.

The day was cloudy with rain coming, but we had to go this day to have several days before we do our experiment.   I was looking forward to a time out with one child and exploring the area.  I’m thinking we can stop, look, and listen to our surrounds.  It didn’t happen, we got there and there were several lawn maintenance people, mowing and blowing the grass.  Ug… the noise!    Well, at least we can collect the pond water and look around.

To prepare for the collection, I had The Pea make the device.  All she did was take an old mop handle and tape a ladle to it.  We needed to be able to get to the bottom of the pond.

As we were walking with my camera, box of plastic jars, backpack, and a long handled ladle, we got some funny looks from the workers. I thought one would be coming to ask what we were doing, but they didn’t. Maybe it wasn’t so strange. There are lots of homeschoolers in the area. lol

Once there we quickly gather our pond water.   The rain was coming.

It was’t easy pouring the water into the jars with that long ladle. lol

Since the rain hadn’t started, we decided to make a quick  observation of the area. I took pictures instead of getting out the nature journals (that we haven’t started yet). We will draw in the journals later.

We found many little wild flowers and one mushroom.

Each jar has a food source in it to help the bacteria grow. These items are listed in Exp. 2.1. I have placed the jars in the garage where it is dark. I cracked the lid, to allow oxygen and then covered them in a paper towel, to help keep it dark.

A better way to allow oxygen in, is to place a piece of pantyhose over the top and attach with a rubberband. I can’t get to my bedroom furniture to get an old pair out (another story), which is why I just cracked the lids.  I also don’t have any rubberbands, because The Pea took them to make a ball and I haven’t seen it in months.

Here is a picture of the inside of the jars. Nasty huh? It will get worse. lol

The experiment will be completed on Tuesday. That gives us five days for the little buggers to grow. I hope it will do well.  This photo was taken on Friday and the smell was already pungent.  It should be nice and ripe on Tuesday.   Our classroom has no windows to open.  lol

Stay tuned…