Monday, June 26, 2017
We started the week off by making our media. The three different types of media we did were, Lysogeny Broth + Agar, M9 + TE, and M9 + CMC + Agar. Our first step was to make our mixture in a jar, then, stir our media on a stirring plate, finally, place our media in the autoclave for sterilization. In the afternoon, we placed our media in plates.
Tuesday, June 27, 2017
On the second day of the week we did two serial dilutions, one was practice with blue dye and the other was with our 30℃ and 37℃ bacterial samples. We diluted all the way to 1:100,000, but only used our last three dilutions. Then, we plated the dilutions on our M9TE + CMC Agar plates.
Practicing dilution before was really helpful because I had never diluted anything before and I really didn’t know much about it, so the blue dye practice helped give me an insight on the do’s and don’ts before doing my bacterial dilution.
Wednesday, June 28, 2017
On the third day of the week we started off with a lesson and practice on visual note taking. I don’t really enjoy drawing, so this was something pretty challenging for me, but I tried to stay positive and learned that visual drawing can be really helpful. We also had a lecture on metric units and did a practice on that. We later had another lesson about college essays.
In the lab, we practiced streaking with E.Coli. Once again, I had never streaked anything and did not know much about it, so practicing was really helpful. I learned what inoculating loops are and how to use them. Streaking was not difficult, but it was tricky because my plate was exposed to possible contamination.
Thursday, June 29, 2017
On the fourth day of the week we had many more lessons, one was about molecular biology, another about college, and the last one was about colony morphology. They were all very interesting and helpful. Later in the day, we worked on our college essay drafts, which were stressful at times, but our teachers were very helpful with giving us feedback.
In the lab, we practice streaking once again, but this time we were given a cut out paper that we were able to put on the back of our plates. The piece of paper helped us follow lines to better streak our plates, which was really helpful.
Friday, June 30, 2017
The last day of the week passed by pretty fast. We started the day with a lesson on environmental impacts and implication, then, we had two workshops. One was about learning how to keep a notebook and the other one was an intro to scientific articles.
In the lab, we did dilutions once again, but this time we did higher concentrations. Instead of doing our last three dilutions of 1:100,000, we did the the first three dilutions of our 30℃ and 37 ℃ bacterial samples. Finally, we ended the day working on our college essays and playing the one and only Kahoot!.
