Science Fair Projects on Cultures in Yogurt

Science fair projects on cultures in yogurt can take on a lot of different angles. You can design your food experiments to look at how cultures in yogurt are used for interesting applications or you can design your science fair projects so you can examine what factors impact the production of tasty yogurt. Below are five project ideas that you can work with to design your own super science fair projects.

You can make yogurt by adding a bacteria culture to milk. This hypothesis is obviously true, but it is a good food experiment to start with. To complete this experiment you will want to simply create a batch of yogurt. The ability to make yogurt will help you develop and execute more advanced science fair projects on cultures in yogurt.

Heat speeds up the development of yogurt cultures. This is the second hypothesis that you can test with your science fair projects on cultures in yogurt. To complete this experiment you will need to set up several yogurt culture experiments. You will then expose each culture to a different temperature. Your control experiment for this project will be the temperature that is recommended for making yogurt. All other temperatures will be considered test cultures.

Light speeds up the development of yogurt cultures. This is a variation on the above science fair project. To test this hypothesis you will need to develop biochemistry science fair project that look at how the yogurt culture responds to light. Does your culture grow faster or slower when exposed to light.

Exposure to air will slow down the development of yogurt cultures. This hypothesis assumes that yogurt cultures are at least semi-anaerobic. In this experiment the independent variable will be the amount of exposure the yogurt culture has to the air and the dependent variable will be the growth rate or the yogurt culture.

Do an experiment to determine if acidophilus and bifidus helps the digestion of food by putting good bacteria back into your body. Acidophilus and bifidobacteria are all species of bacteria classified as probiotics, or “friendly” intestinal bacteria. The health food industry says that "intestinal bacteria are essential are essential to health and survival". Is this true or an advertising gimic?

Yogurt cultures can't be contaminated by foreign bacteria cultures once they have been established. This hypothesis assumes that the yogurt culture is aggressive enough to either destroy foreign bacteria colonies that try to invade its territory or that it produces an anti-biotic residue that will keep other bacteria at bay. To test this hypothesis you will need to set up several yogurt cultures and then introduce a foreign bacteria to see what happens. Can two bacteria cultures grow in the same Petrie dish? You will find more information on sciene fair projects in bacteria in yogurt here...