im doing a science fair project, im going to put some bacteria on petri dishes and weigh them, will i get sufficient measurements with some scales? is this the correct way to measure the amount of bacteria to show on a graph and data table? what alternatives can i try to determine the difference in amounts of bacteria in each culture? thanks.
2007-01-13 14:41:53 · 2 answers · asked by alan m 2 in Education & Reference ➔ Homework Help
Almost certainly not: you'd have to have some pretty sensitive scales, and you'd have to find a way to control for evaporation. Also, the bacteria grow after eating food - and it's not a 1:1 correlation (eating 1 g of food doesn't mean you get 1 g of bacteria growth). How will you determine the weight of the bacteria, given you can't control how much food is eaten, and you don't know how much food must be eaten to grow 1 g of bacteria?
You're better off measuring the surface area of the bacteria.
2007-01-16 02:55:22 · answer #1 · answered by ³√carthagebrujah 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Ok, first you weigh the empty petri dish without bacteria. Then you weigh the one with bacteria, do some math and there you have the weight of the bacteria. However, you would have to have a pretty sensitive scale to measure the weight of bacteria... How much does bacteria weigh, .00001 grams? Most scientists count bacteria colonies that develop over time and track their progress that way as they see what factors contribute to their growth.
2007-01-13 14:59:37 · answer #2 · answered by Molly R 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋